His days in Banaras were spent under the guidance of Madan Mohan Malviya and with fellow students such as Ram Manohar Lohia, Rudra Dutt Bharadwaj, Janardan Jha, and Brij Lal.
B. Lal, Professor R. N. Deb, Sri Aditya Nath Jha (Later Governor of Delhi), Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and Mahadevi Verma, who later became literary colleagues.
Under intense pressure from his father, Gupta appeared for Civil Services Exams and passed them but chose the fields of education and literature as his career instead.
His first wife, Rameshwari Goyal, had a master's degree in English and her book in Hindi, Jeevan Ka Sapna ("Dream of Life") was published posthumously in 1937.
Sarla was an independence worker during her early years and a founding member of the National Federation of Indian Women.
Although he experimented with writing short stories, poetry, and plays, his forte remained sketches and literary criticism.
During the latter part of his career, he translated Hindi articles and poetry to English with main emphasis being on the works of Premchand.