Sandhya Rani Dey was a third-year student of history honours at Calcutta’s Scottish Church College. That was in the late 1950s. “The college had a good library and I wanted to prepare for the civil services,” says the 86-year-old who lives in Behala.

The family home was in Gidhni in Jhargram, so Sandhya Rani lived in the girls’ hostel. One winter night, she experienced severe pain in the abdomen. Unable to bear it, she told her hostel mates, who alerted the matron, who first administered a dose of Aqua Ptychotis and then sent for the resident doctor. Upon examination, the resident doctor pronounced that the young woman consult a surgeon and have her appendix removed.

Her father, who happened to be in the city, took her to Mayo Hospital in Posta. For a good bit Sandhya Rani cannot stop talking about her father Sudhir Chandra Dey. How he was a freedom fighter, how he was arrested in the Khulna Conspiracy Case of 1910 and sent to the Cellular Jail in the Andamans. The revolutionary father had taught his little girl to be fearless. He trained her in lathi khela.

Back to our story. Sandhya Rani’s surgery was scheduled.

It was not until the morning of the surgery that she met him, the young house surgeon whom everyone referred to as Dr Ray. He had been away in Jalpaiguri to meet a potential matrimonial match and had only just returned. No sooner than they met that they started to clash. He ticked her off for having her earrings, bangles and chain on, and also because he had seen her hostel superintendent sitting on her bed. “These are against the rules,” he told her rather gruffly. On her part, she found him arrogant and refused to be in awe of his credentials.

Post surgery too the sparring continued. The patient was in pain, and she conveyed as much to Dr Ray. He replied, “I have seen women in greater pain at a certain point in their lives.” “That day will never come in my life,” Sandhya Rani shot back. “The words simply tumbled out of my mouth,” she says. Years later, she learnt that her emphatic words had intrigued the doctor. He had wondered, “Why does she say so, she is well educated, intelligent, good looking…”

Breaking into a chuckle, Sandhya Rani says, “He would spare no occasion to come to my room and start a conversation. Sometimes he would finish up the daab that was meant for me.” In the evenings, an angry Sandhya Rani would complain to her mother and elder sister: “He behaves badly. I don’t like him at all.”

One day, when Dr Ray was doing the rounds, Sandhya Rani spied his key ring. “May I see it?” she asked. He replied solemnly, “Certainly not. One cannot hold them without assuming responsibility for them.” Then added softly, “Would you like to take… the responsibility of this bunch of keys?”

As stories go, that evening Sandhya Rani did not answer in the affirmative. In due course, she recovered and went back to college. Unknown to her, her family kept in touch with Dr Ray. Her sister who had seen him at the hospital, had come away impressed. His brother had met Sandhya Rani’s mother.

Dr Ray would sometimes show up at her hostel after work but Sandhya Rani always tried to devise ways to give him the slip. Many times she escaped to a friend’s in Paikpara. Once she even requested her friends from the boys’ hostel to tell him to stop visiting. When Sandhya Rani’s mother learnt about the last, she flew into a rage. “She scolded me and rushed to his quarters in Mayo Hospital late at night,” says Sandhya Rani.

Sandhya Rani and Dr Anil Chandra Ray courted for a year before they tied the knot in 1959. Post marriage, she pursued her studies — master’s and law. All laughter and shine, Sandhya Rani lets out a long kept secret. The day after the key incident, the sombre doctor had gone a step further and planted a peck on her cheek.