Nihar Ranjan Gupta’s birth anniversary observed

The ancestral home of Nihar Ranjan Gupta in ruins.Photo: STAR

The 98th birth anniversary of popular novelist Nihar Ranjan Gupta was observed on June 6. He was born on June 6, 1911 in Kolkata where his father Satya Ranjan Gupta worked. His ancestral home is at Itna village under Lohagara upazila in Narail. As a physician he specialised in skin diseases.
His career as a novelist overshadowed his image. He wrote more than two hundred novels. Among them Mayur Mahal, Chowdhury Bari, Devjani, Niltara, Ulka, Bonhishikha, Uttar Falguni, Kamal Gandhar, Kalo Bhromor, Lalu Vulu, Maya Mrigo and Nishi Padma are notable.
About 45 novels of Nihar Ranjan Gupta were made into cinema by famous film makers. He breathed his last on January 20, 1986.
Itna Seba Samity and Itna Public Library organised a daylong programme to mark his birth anniversary in his ancestral home. The two storied building is under the supervision of the district administration and is now in ruins. In 2005, the Archaeological Department took up a programme to acquire the building but the effort has not yielded results.