When Dr Pannalal Goswami and Dr Nandita Bhattacharya Goswami retired from Cotton College in 2009, few expected they were also quietly saving towards a single, enormous decision. 

This July, the Guwahati couple walked into the Kumar Bhaskar Varma Sanskrit and Ancient Studies University (KBVS&ASU) in Nalbari and handed over Rs 1 crore, virtually their entire life savings, built up across four decades on modest government salaries. It was not earmarked for children, property or retirement comfort.

It went, in full, to a state university most Assamese families have never visited, dedicated to studying Sanskrit and the history of the ancient kingdom of Kamarupa. 

There was no elaborate ceremony, only a simple handover on 17 July that officials called one of the largest individual gifts the university had received.

Spending 40 years in classrooms

Dr Pannalal Goswami taught chemistry at Cotton College, then among Assam's oldest institutions and now Cotton University. Dr Nandita Bhattacharya Goswami taught Sanskrit at the same college and went on to serve as its vice-principal, guiding students through classical texts for years. 

Cotton College, founded in 1901, has produced generations of Assam's civil servants, writers and scientists, and the couple spent their entire careers within its walls. The two disciplines they........

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