His father, Kaliram Medhi, was a prominent man of letters and had presided over the 1919 session of the Asam Sahitya Sabha.
[1] Chaliha worked in several educational institutions in Germany before returning to India in 1960 to join the Assam Engineering College as a lecturer in the Department of Physics.
[citation needed] The bulk of his stories are contained in a few anthologies – A few other recompilations are, Many of these stories first appeared in Assamese magazines and literary journals like Banhi, Ramdhenu, Awahan, Samakalin, Sadin, Dainik Asom, Asom Bani etc.
Saurabh Kumar Chaliha won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1974 for his short story collection, Golam.
Saurabh Kumar Chaliha was suffering from a respiratory ailment and was admitted to the International Hospital where he had also undergone a minor surgery.