Sitanath De’s main interest in life initially was to play football. But very early in life he also helped out his doctor uncle in their native Jhargram as a compounder assistant, sometimes preparing even a complex item like castor oil mixture. The uncle instilled in him the need to someday become a doctor and serve the poor people of Jhargram — then as now, a small town in a backwater region with a significant Adivasi population and then, more than now, extensively forested.
The two worlds of football and medicine came together when young Sitanath, after securing a ‘mild second division’ in his intermediate science examination, applied for admission to the undergraduate medical course in Kolkata’s National Medical College under the sportsmen’s quota. The big thing for him was his football skills being tested out by the legendary footballer Goshta Pal. Sitanath made the grade in football, and got in.