It is midnight and it is raining incessantly. A woman in her fifties walks briskly along the- muddy, slippery roads of a remote village in Lakshmikantapur in the outskirts of Kolkata.

The small brick house with a corrugated tin roof in which she lives is still a little way off and it is barely visible in the surrounding darness. But Mandakini Haldar, a vegetable vendor,who goes to the city every day to sell the produce of her farm and returns by the last train knows her way back home, past the large ponds, the towering trees and the expansive paddy fields. “I have been doing this for over two decades,” she says. “Come rain or shine.”

To those who have asked her, “Are you not afraid? (of everything from snakes to spirits, not to mention humans with evil propensities), her reply has always been, “No I am not. I am fearless. Like Ma Durga and Ma Kali.” Mandakini says that while most people celebrate Durga Puja and Kali Puja like a festival, she identifies with its “real meaning” which is to “feel powerful”. She says casually, “It is a timefor women and girls to remember how strong they are and they can do anything that theywant to.”With less than a month to go before the start of the season which begins with Durga Puja andends with Kali Puja, Mandakini finds herself having to fend off detractors who think she should try to be more care- ful.This year the rains have been incessant,” she says “and the roads in our village are usuallyflooded, not to mention, muddy and slippery.

By the time I go back home it gets really lateand my family gets really worried.”She lives with her husband, sons and daughters- in-law, who have all been telling her that sheshould now quit. The daily journey to the city and back, after all, is arduous. She walks for a few kilometers from her village to catch a bus to the local train station. She alights at Kolkata’s Ballygunge railway station and from there gets onto another bus or an auto to go to Lake Market, one of the city’s busiest bazaars.She says that before leaving home she helps her daughters-in-law with the cooking, cleaning, washing dishes and clothes and other household chores.

Her husband and sons are farmers. Itwas her idea to come to the city to make more money. “I don’t want to quit because it makesme feel powerful.”