SHALU GUPTA, LONELY COLLECTOR

Shalu Gupta was never a diehard collector. In fact, for at least a decade – from the time he began reading comics to the time he began collecting them – he had forgotten all about them. “One just grows up you know. My father is a doctor. He wanted me to do medicine. I was never really up to the task. But that takes a lot away from you. Especially something as enjoyable as comics,” he says. Gupta eventually graduated in the Arts. Brought up in Hoshiarpur in Punjab, the 39-year-old now runs his own hoteliering business there.

Born to a lower-middle-class family that could not afford a TV until the mid-Nineties, reading was the only thing that Gupta and his younger brother could do. “Hoshiarpur didn’t really have a good source to get comics from. So we got them from Jalandhar through relatives. But we rarely bought any. We just did not have the money. Most of my early years were spent reading rented comics,” he says. Compared to most collectors, Gupta’s relationship with comics is acutely personal.

In 2007, the year Gupta got married, his mother passed away. “Both me and my younger brother, we were broken. We did not know what to do. My wife, who had just entered my life, probably didn’t either. My brother, out of the blue, brought home the latest series from Raj. It was good, I got back to reading, and it helped me deal with the pain,” he says. He owns complete sets of Raj and Diamond comics. Close to 10,000 editions sit in a room on the first floor of his house that he has kept for his collection.

The father of two children now, Gupta is probably the only one interested in comics in a town like Hoshiarpur. That said, there are moments that help him keep the faith. “A week back we called an electrician to fix the AC of the room where I keep my collection. He immediately said he would love to borrow a few. I find satisfaction that I am able to offer something to people,” he says.