On June 24, I received a phone call from Chandrakant “Chuck” Gupta. Chuck always called when there was a new Indian restaurant in the area.
This time, however, it was to tell me his stepson, Edgar “Chip” Barclay Cale III, a Main Line resident, lawyer, and vice-president with GlaxoSmith Kline, died on June 16 at the age of 61. Chuck said Chip had many professional achievements and loved skiing in Colorado and sailing his boat on the Chesapeake Bay, but “his greatest joy and achievement was being a father and mentor to his son, Lawson.”
Imagine my shock and sorrow when I learned, a few days later, that Chuck died on June 26, just two days after that call. He died of a heart attack at 93.
Gupta was born near New Delhi, India in 1932 and raised in Mumbai. He received a B.S. degree from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay, and a post-graduate degree in textile chemistry. Gupta came to the U.S. in 1956 for graduate studies in organic chemistry at Temple University.
After graduation, Gupta pursued a career in pharmaceutical research. His first full-time job was as a research chemist for ReligenDX, a medical testing laboratory in Plymouth Meeting that develops and implements new diagnostic testing. Gupta worked there for 12 years.
In 1970, he switched careers, opening India Hand Arts, an import/export firm in Germantown specializing in the manufacturing and sale of textiles from India and the Far East. It lasted for 35 years.
In June, 1990, at 68, Gupta married Margot Rowley in a ceremony that merited the headline “A double wedding with just one couple” in The Philadelphia Inquirer. After an Episcopal Church wedding service, Gupta and Rowley had an outdoor Hindu wedding ceremony. The marriage was Gupta’s first.
The couple moved to a retirement complex in Blue Bell in 2010 after living in Chestnut Hill for 20 years.
Gupta was an active member of the English-Speaking Union (ESU) in Philadelphia. At the ESU’s 75th anniversary celebration in 2014, he received the ESU National Merit Award. He also joined the Germantown Cricket Club to play tennis, and helped form a cricket team that won the Philadelphia International Cricket Festival in 1997.
He was a board member of the International Visitors Center and a member of International House Philadelphia, Plays & Players Theatre, and more. He also served as the president and treasurer of the Science and Art Club of Germantown.
“He was a wonderful man,” Margot told the Local last week. “His passions were family, education, philanthropy, tennis, and cricket. … We traveled to India many times.”
Laura Adams, Gupta’s stepdaughter, said, “Chuck was very kind. I was an adult when he and mom married, but he made an effort to always visit us when we lived in California. He put together a family reunion so we could travel to Italy and France, and he really instilled in us a love of Indian food.”
In his will, Gupta left substantial funds for scholarships to international students in Temple’s College of Science and Technology.
“Education is the key to everything,” Gupta told the Local in 2015. “After I earned the master’s degree from Temple, I was planning to return to India, but someone at International House of Philadelphia, a wonderful place that helps international students adjust to life here, helped me get that first job at ReligenDX, which changed my entire life for the better. And since good people helped me so much, I want to help other young students get off to a good start professionally.”
Gupta is survived by his wife Margot; her children, Laura Adams and Christopher Cale; his younger sister, Vilma Sah; and many cousins, nieces, and nephews.
“Joe Thomas, of the Jacob Ruth Funeral Home, did a wonderful job with everything,” Margot said. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Gupta Family Fund at the Philadelphia Foundation, P.O. Box 826728, Philadelphia, PA 19182.
Len Lear can be reached at LenLear@chestnuthilllocal.com.
