KOLKATA: Her hands are covered with the hues of Holi. Her face and white muslin kameez and pink Chanderi dupatta, however, are off limits for those colours; she has got “several other commitments for the rest of the day” and cannot afford to spoil them. Lunch is a few hurried gulps from a kulhad of lassi, “sugar-free of course”; she does not have time for anything else. And her sleep-time has come down to three hours, “give or take a few minutes”.Mimi Chakraborty, Trinamool candidate from Jadavpur , the same constituency from where CM Mamata Banerjee started her Goliath-slaying electoral career, is a woman in a hurry.The 30-year-old actress, who along with Tollywood colleague Nusrat Jahan has added a dash of glamour and colour to this year’s Trinamool candidates’ list, has got 10 days more to wrap up her “professional commitments” before she hits the bylanes of Shahidnagar and Gandhi Colony to canvass for votes, for herself and her party. That world of refugee colonies (for those who came from erstwhile East Pakistan in the 1960s and 1970s) will be as far from this Esplanade terrace, where Chakraborty is wrapping up a promotional shoot for her new release (‘Mon Jane Na’). She knows that but says she is ready for the roller-coaster.“Both my parents’ brothers are into active politics and so was my grandfather,” the girl, who grew up in Jalpaiguri and started her acting career in the popular serial ‘Gaaner Oparey’ in 2010, says.I have been asked to complete all my shooting and promotional commitments by the 25th of March, after which I will solely focus on campaigning,” Chakraborty says.But politics has already started seeping into the life of Mimi Chakraborty . Much of Thursday was spent in a “karmi sabha (workers’ meet)” in Diamond Harbour in South 24-Parganas, she explains in the middle of her Friday’s shoot, adding she will have to wrap up three movies and multiple photo-shoots and promotional events in the next nine days. Films have already started losing out to politics: “I have already opted out of one of the movie projects as the dates were clashing with the campaign.”Chakraborty has decided the major issues she wants to focus on during her campaign; women’s safety and moral policing top her list. “There have been multiple instances in my constituency when women have been attacked for wearing ‘a short dress’ (a Presidency University student in 2015) and for smoking in public (a Jadavpur University student in 2018). No one can dictate what I will wear and I am strictly against such moral guardianship,” she says.“I will reach out to the public under the mentorship of senior leaders and decide on the other issues I would like to take up in public life,” Chakraborty adds, confident that her party colleagues and workers will accept her as a “barir meye (daughter of the family)” off screen as well.But there are moments when that facade — of being that homely, nextdoor girl — slips off, especially when she starts talking about her childhood. “Yes, I was called the ‘Bandit Queen’ at my home and in the neighbourhood,” she admits with a twinkle in her eyes. She knows that “danpitey” streak (a Tomboy can be closest translation) will stand her in much better stead than anything else in the hurly-burly of politics.

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