The village she comes from does not have a dry and flat tract of land, let alone a playground. All around her tin house are patches of farmland that are submerged for most of the year.
It is on the clay roads of Toibichora village in Nadia, about 150km from Calcutta, that Debashree Mazumdar used to practise running. Seven years ago, when her father, the sole earning member of the family, died, she had thought she would have to give up her athletics dream.
Cut to 2016, the 25-year-old is the lone athlete from Bengal to qualify for a track and field event at the Rio Olympics. Debashree is a member of the women's team for the 4x400m relay, one of the marquee events at the Olympics.
"It was my father's dream that I compete in the Olympics someday. He's the one who would take me to see the school district games, which my eldest sister had participated in," Debashree recounted to Metro on the eve of her Rio journey.
The sprightly girl was spotted by Tapan Bhandari, a Sports Authority of India (SAI) coach, at a block-level meet in Krishnanagar about 11 years ago. "I was impressed by this untrained, malnourished girl's performance - coming second in 200m and reaching the final of the 400m. I recommended her name to SAI. I now stand vindicated," said the retired coach, now a state selector.
Debashree's father Manmatha had been hesitant about sending the youngest of his four daughters to the SAI hostel in faraway Calcutta. But Bhandari persisted, travelling to Bethuadahari to train her on an ash-topped stretch next to a market. "Their house, made of tin sheets, was a half-an-hour cycle van ride from there."
Once Debashree joined SAI, the results were immediate. "She topped the under-16 East Zone athletics meet in the 400m and came third in the junior national meet in Bangalore," recalled Nilima Basu, her running partner and best friend.
She qualified soon for the national team and was part of the relay squad for the World Youth Championship in the Czech Republic.
But when her father, a deep tubewell operator, died in 2009, Debashree's fortunes nosedived. "Our HS exams were a fortnight away. When I met her at the crematorium, Debu said she would give up sport. I went to her home to talk her out of it," Nilima said.
In 2010, a foot injury took her out of athletics for close to a year. "We really used to worry about her future," said sister Satabdi.
An income-tax department job for Debashree and a Group D government job for Satabdi pulled the family through those tough times.
"My daughter has been through a lot. She was not allowed to take the field in a number of competitions. It is by God's grace that she made it to Rio despite all the politics," said mother Menaka, who handed the family's savings to her daughter as pocket money for the trip.
"Even the night before the announcement of the team, she was crying over the phone that a girl ranked lower than her might upstage her," Satabdi said.
But now all the talk is of the excitement at the Games Village. "She sat next to (Raphael) Nadal at lunch," her mother smiled, albeit unsure about who he is.
Debashree is unfazed at being in elite company. "I had seen (Usain) Bolt at the World Championships. Yes, all the players eat at the same place here," she texted Metro.
The Mazumdars went to bed on Friday after a call from Debashree saying she had just been handed the blazer and sari for the marchpast. "She will have to help the other girls drape a sari too!" Satabdi said.
Olympian Soma Biswas, who also hails from Nadia, rates Debashree highly. "She is a very talented girl and the relay team should at least reach the semi-finals," she said.
"I am praying they let her take the field (on August 18)," mother Menaka hoped.
