Key Points:
- Lives in 90-year-old tiled-roof house on Harish Chatterjee Street that floods during monsoons
- Wakes at 4:30 AM, walks 6 km daily at speeds that make security personnel jog
- Survives on puffed rice, tea, and boiled vegetables, strictly avoiding spices and pickles
- Owns no personal vehicle, uses government Ambassador car only for official duties
- Hand-washes her own white cotton sarees, refuses designer labels or expensive weaves
- Underwent secret medical procedure in 2025, continued working same day
- Paints until 2 AM, has written 25 books, practices Rabindra Sangeet daily
Mamata Banerjee’s most powerful political statement isn’t made in rallies but through her choice of residence. She lives in a 90-year-old, 1,200-square-foot tiled-roof house at 30B Harish Chatterjee Street in Kalighat, Kolkata. The house, inherited from her father Promileshwar Banerjee, lacks modern amenities that even middle-class Bengalis consider essential. There is no air conditioning in any room, only ceiling fans that struggle during Kolkata’s humid summers when temperatures cross 40 degrees Celsius.
The house floods during every monsoon, with water entering the ground floor rooms. Instead of moving to the Chief Minister’s official residence at 30B Camac Street, a colonial bungalow with full amenities, Mamata insists on staying in her ancestral home. In 2025, when Cyclone Remal caused severe waterlogging, she slept on a raised wooden platform while continuing to meet party workers in the waterlogged rooms. Her only concession to comfort is a small puja room where she performs daily rituals for two hours each morning.
The Dawn Routine That Baffles Bureaucrats
Mamata’s day begins at 4:30 AM, a habit she has maintained for decades. She starts with two hours of prayer and meditation, followed by reading three newspapers cover to cover, The Times of India, Anandabazar Patrika, and Ganashakti. By 6:30 AM, she is on her treadmill or walking the narrow lanes of Kalighat at a pace that her security detail finds challenging to match.
Her walking speed, described by companions as “power walking,” covers 6 kilometers in approximately 45 minutes. Journalists assigned to cover her morning walks often complain they must jog to keep up while taking notes. She walks regardless of weather, wearing the same rubber flip-flops she has worn for years. In 2025, her doctors advised reducing the intensity after she developed knee pain, but she reduced the distance only slightly to 5 kilometers, refusing to stop completely.
The Spartan Diet of a Chief Minister
Mamata’s food habits are legendary in political circles for their simplicity. Her typical day includes breakfast of puffed rice (muri) with tea, lunch of boiled rice, dal, and one boiled vegetable, and dinner of the same combination. She completely avoids spicy food, pickles, and fried items, believing they cloud mental clarity. Her only indulgence is occasional potato chops from a local Kalighat shop, which she eats maybe twice a month.
She drinks 15-20 cups of tea daily, prepared by herself in a small kitchen where she insists on boiling the water and adding the tea leaves personally. No chef or attendant is allowed to prepare her tea. During official banquets, she either eats nothing or carries her own tiffin box with simple home-cooked food. In 2025, when hosting a dinner for foreign diplomats, she served them Bengali delicacies while she herself ate only boiled vegetables and rice, embarrassing her protocol officers.
The Wardrobe That Became a Symbol
Mamata’s white cotton saree is not a political costume but her only wardrobe. She owns approximately 30 white sarees, all of the Dhanekhali weave, costing between ₹300-500 each. She hand-washes them herself every two days, refusing to use laundry services. The sarees are dried on a clothesline in her courtyard, visible to neighbors and passersby.
She owns no jewelry except a simple silver bangle and refuses to wear makeup. Her footwear collection consists of three pairs of rubber flip-flops, which she buys from a local market for ₹50 per pair. When designers offered to create a signature line of “Didi sarees” in 2024, she angrily refused, calling it “bourgeois nonsense.” Her only accessory is a cotton bag (jhola) that carries her daily essentials, papers, a small notebook, and her mobile phone.
The Secret Health Battle of 2025
In September 2025, Mamata underwent a minor surgical procedure at SSKM Hospital, which her office kept secret for three days. She checked in under a pseudonym at 11 PM and was back at work by 6 AM the next morning, conducting a cabinet meeting via video call from her hospital bed. The procedure was related to a recurring throat issue caused by her constant speaking at rallies.
Her doctors have prescribed complete voice rest for two weeks, which she ignored, delivering a 45-minute speech at the Kolkata Book Fair inauguration three days post-surgery. In December 2025, she fainted briefly during a rally in North Bengal but refused hospitalization, continuing the event after 10 minutes of rest. Her personal physician has publicly expressed concern about her “self-destructive work ethic,” but Mamata dismisses such worries as “elitist concerns.”
The Artist Who Paints at Midnight
Mamata’s creative pursuits are not hobbies but essential survival mechanisms. She paints between midnight and 2 AM, often after finishing official work, creating abstract works that reflect her emotional state. Her 2025 series, titled “Resistance,” features dark, stormy colors representing her political battles. These paintings are not for public display but are occasionally auctioned, with proceeds going to party funds or disaster relief.
She practices Rabindra Sangeet daily for 30 minutes, singing Tagore songs that her mother taught her. Her nature photography, captured on a simple digital camera during her morning walks, has been compiled into three unpublished albums. In 2025, she wrote her 26th book, a collection of poems about Bengal’s rivers, writing longhand in Bengali script that her assistants later typed.
The Personal Relationships She Protects
Mamata maintains a small circle of personal relationships, primarily her nephews and a few childhood friends from Kalighat. She speaks to her 92-year-old mother, Gayatri Devi’s photograph daily, though her mother passed away in 2020. Her relationship with her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, TMC’s national general secretary, is strictly professional in public, though she privately advises him on political strategy.
She has no close friends in politics, considering relationships a weakness. Her only confidante is her personal secretary of 25 years, who lives in a room adjacent to hers. In 2025, when her secretary fell ill, Mamata personally cooked meals for him, delivering them to his room. She attends no social events, weddings, or parties, considering them a waste of time. Her entire life is structured around work, with personal needs reduced to an absolute minimum.
