Asok Das Gupta was a kindly and much-respected ENT surgeon in Birmingham and Walsall. He was born into a highly-educated Hindu family in Daulatpur, Bengal; his father later became professor of mathematics at the University of Calcutta. As a consequence of the Partition of India in 1947, Asok and his family were forced to migrate to Calcutta. Asok completed his schooling in West Bengal and went on to study medicine at Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College, Calcutta, qualifying in 1958. He carried out early ENT appointments in Calcutta and, having decided that this was the specialty he wished to follow, he went to England for further training. Between 1961 and 1965 he worked at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and other hospitals in London and the south east. In 1966, he became a senior registrar, first in Wolverhampton and then at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. In 1969, he was appointed as a consultant at the Birmingham and Midland Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital and the Walsall Group of Hospitals. With the closure of the Birmingham and Midland Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital in 1988, he transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Although he became widely known and respected as a head and neck cancer specialist, particularly at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, he continued to provide a full range of ENT surgery at Walsall Manor Hospital. He was not afraid to be unconventional in his specialised cancer field and the good outcomes he produced are a testament to his surgical skill and logical approach. He retired from clinical work in 2004, but continued with some outpatient clinics and undergraduate teaching for a couple of years. He was popular with colleagues, young and old, and his nursing fraternity. He was an acknowledged, inspirational teacher, but was also known for his great sensitivity and kindness. The most fitting epitaph to describe this quiet, highly professional man was as someone who was kind, caring, enthusiastic, hard-working, skillful and dependable. Just before his death he expressed a wish that he be remembered for the patient care he provided. Beyond medicine and his family, the great recreational love of his life was that most English of all sports, cricket, not only to watch, but in his younger days to play. He was survived by his widow, Anne (née Fenn), whom he married in 1970, and their two daughters, Nina and Roma.