It is difficult to think of any Indian other than Sisir Gupta who spanned the three worlds of academics, journalism and diplomacy with equal aplomb. The only other name that comes to mind is that of Mr. M.C. Chagla. But though he has had an even more variegated career as a teacher, lawyer, judge and chief justice of the Bombay High Court, envoy to Britain and the United States, Union minister for education and external affairs and a leading dissident during the dark days of the emergency, he has not been a journalist. This was Sisir’s strength as well as weakness, strength because it gave him a comprehensiveness and freshness of approach which was rather unique and weakness because it prevented him from rising to the top in any one of these professions. Perhaps he was not even interested.
Sisir was as restless as he was scintillating, especially in the last 10 years when he moved from one job to another and found all of them less than satisfactory. Apparently this was an expression of a deeper struggle, the struggle to excel himself and do something for which he could be remembered for years and decades to come. He was truly tortured. And the more he tortured himself, the more he gave to others. The best of him came out in conversation when he would not only explore various aspects of a problem or a controversy but also come out with stunning, invariably accurate, forecasts. If they were generally, gloomy, who could blame him?
Sisir was India’s ambassador to Hanoi at a critical stage in Vietnam’s struggle and he was picked up to set up and head the embassy in Lisbon when New Delhi decided to resume diplomatic relations with Portugal in 1975 after a break of nearly two decades. This was a tribute to his suavity and acceptability among the members of the then top establishment. But he did not belong to that establishment. Indeed, he could not belong to any. He was less at home in the world of the successful, the powerful and the rich than in that of the unsuccessful and the struggling. But he loved nothing more than what his fellow Bengalis call the adda (gathering of friends and acquaintances). As director of research at the Indian Council of World Affairs, he used to order on an average 50 cups of tea a day for those who called on him to seek his help and advice. This was a great strain, mental, physical and financial. But he bore it all ungrudgingly.