Jagadish Gupta - Life

Life

Jagadish Gupta was born at Kushtia, Nadia district (now in Kushtia district, Bangladesh) to Kailash Chandra Sengupta and Saudamini Devi. His birth name was Jagadish Chandra Sengupta which he never used in his literary career. He was born on July, 1886; but the exact date of his birth is unknown. As a child Gupta went to the village pathshala (primary school) run by Ramlal Saha. Later he came away to Calcutta and was admitted into City Collegiate School from where he passed Matriculation Examination in 1905 and admitted to the Ripon College (now Surendranath College). He started writing poems in this time. After passing First Arts Examination, he started learning stenography and typing. He got married to Charubala Sengupta of Osmanpur, Nadia in 1906. He gave up his studies at Ripon College in 1907 and he took up a job as a ‘job-typist’ at Seuri District Judge’s Court in 1908. That was not a regular salaries job but he would be paid remuneration against the work he did. In 1912, he was appointed as a regular salaried typist in the office of the Executive Engineer in Sambalpur, Orissa. In 1918, he took up the job of a salaried typist at Patna High Court but resigned from the job in 1924 and vowed never to took up a job again though his financial condition compelled him to take up a typist’s job in Bolpur Chowki Adalat in 1927. In 1944, he retired form his job and left Bolpur to settle in Calcutta where he stayed at the house of Kshitish Gupta at the Lake Market area. In 1950, he shifted to his own house at Jadavpur and started bringing up a girl named Sukumari. In 1954, the Government of India granted him a ‘Distinguished Man of Letters Allowance’ of Rupees 150 which was later reduced to Rupees 75. He died of a head injury in his Calcutta residency on 15 April, 1957.