A narrow alley off Calcutta’s iconic Kalighat Temple meanders along the banks of a canal which was once the original course of the Hooghly River, the part of the Ganges that flows through West Bengal. A house, almost as tiny as a hamlet hut nestles on one side of it. Here lives Mamata Banerjee, currently the country’s only woman chief minister. Didi meaning elder sister, as she is affectionately called “even by children,” as she herself pointed out recently, is as much known for her simplicity as she is for her fiery personality, who did what was once considered the “impossible.”

In the state elections of 2011, she uprooted the mighty Communist regime, which had grown deep roots into the political soil of Bengal for over three decades.

Since then she has become a symbol of women’s empowerment and a role model for women who aspire to shake-off the shackles of patriarchy the world over. Indeed the story of her fearless fight for the downtrodden and the people of the grassroots had travelled across the globe. In May 2012, a year after she swept to power in the state, Hillary Clinton, former United States first lady who was US Secretary of State at the time, made a detour to Kolkata during an official trip to India so that she could meet Mamata. The story of how a woman who came from a humble home with little contacts in the world of political power and charged into the scene to take down a well-established regime run by erudite patriarchs from privileged backgrounds, wearing only a plain, white, cotton sari with a colored border and a pair of rubber slippers, intrigued all.

If International Women’s Day or Week for that matter, is to commemorate one woman for her indomitable spirit and unbound energy, arguably few candidates would be more qualified for the honor than the West Bengal chief minister.

But it is not really only a woman’s ability to wrest power from patriarchy which proves her true mettle as a woman. Didi’s announcement and implementation of a bouquet of welfare schemes for girls and women over the past decade has shown that she is keenly aware of the needs of women. During a reporting trip to the remote villages in the jungles of West Bengal’s West Midnapore district before the elections, I had jokingly asked a girl who was too young to vote, “tui kakey vote dibi?” (Who will you vote for?). She giggled and blurted out, “Didike!” Why? “Because she gives us rice.” Her mother said that getting free ration to put food on the plates of her family was the biggest boon in years. Plates in this region were made of saal leaves from the forest. Glasses from clay. This idyllic life was incomplete without the aroma of rice boiling on an earthen cooking pot.

The public distribution schemes for girls and women, in fact, have been amongst Mamata’s most successful missions as chief minister. “The schemes targeted the real needs of girls and women,” says Dola Sen, Mamata’s party Trinamool’s representative in the upper house of Parliament. “They are so successful that currently they are being emulated by others.”

“Lakshmi Bhandar is a blessing for me,” says Bipasha Sardar from a village in North 24 Paragana District. “I work as a domestic help but this money gets spent every month. My husband does odd jobs and his income is not reliable so the extra money in the bank makes me feel very secure. Also these days I feel that I don’t need to ask anyone for money if I want to buy something. Like I have been planning to get a pair of gold earrings. I will do it with the new income.”

The Kanyashree scheme, which has won an international award, has transformed the lives of young schoolgirls. “Not just us girls….look at him,” quips a teenager at a village in Birbhum, whose brother borrowed the pink bicycle that she received under the scheme.

One of the most glaring indicators of Mamata’s commitment to gender equality is as her party’s spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien pointed out after the 33 per cent women’s reservation bill was passed last year. He said, “In Trinamool one-third reservation for women already exists.” Nine out of Trinamool’s 23 MPs were women. That’s, in fact, nearly 40 percent.

And lest you forget the adage: the political is also the personal.

“One of the things I noticed about Mamata when I was a part of a team travelling with her during an election campaign was her compassionate nature and motherly feelings towards people,” said a consultant marketing manager, who said he did not want to be named. “We had been travelling and she was busy addressing rallies. Suddenly during a break she turned around towards us and scolded us. “Tomra ekhono khaoni? Keno khaoni? (You people haven’t had lunch yet? Why not?) Immediately eat something. Only then we will proceed. “I associate such compassionate behavior only with a woman, like a mother,” he said.

I personally witnessed Didi’s compassionate and caring nature in the brief interactions and interviews I have had with her as a journalist. In 2015, after the Nepal earthquake, I was one of the reporters who had gone to cover Mamata’ s trip to Nepal to visit the people affected by the devastating earthquake. At Bagdogra airport after her plane landed, all the cars in the convoy carrying her were ready to leave for the location. I was still waiting for my vehicle which was stuck in a traffic in Siliguri. Frantic, I did not know what to do. Finally as I saw that the cars were about to drive away, I rushed to the car in which Didi was sitting on the passenger seat by the window and clung to the door saying, “Didi, amar gari ekhono aasheni. Apnara to chole jacchen.Amake ekta garite ektu accommodate korey deen na.” (Didi, my car has not yet arrived and you are already on your way. Can you please tell them to find a place for me in one of these cars?” It didn’t take a second for her to immediately call out to someone and say, ‘Ei, okey ekkhuni ekta garite boshiey dao. Kokhon or gari ashbey theek nei.” (Ei, find a place for her in one of the cars. Who knows when her car will arrive.)

Arguably no other chief minister in any other part of the world would do this.

Mamata, it has been said, has a heart of a woman and a head of man. I think she has both a heart and a head of a woman.