he always wanted to do different things. With a bachelor's degree in science, she chose to take up Islamic studies in her post-graduation. She fell in love with the camera during these days.
"Buying a camera in the early 1970s in Kolkata was a difficult thing for women. People looked at me strangely and formed wrong opinions about me. Even my parents opposed it," she recalls.
A male friend helped her to learn the basics of the camera.
Meanwhile, she became a sound recordist at All India Radio. She wanted to study journalism, but her parents did not allow her to do so.
It was in 1983 that she went to a Communist Party of India-Marxist rally on her own. She jostled with male photographers and took some pictures. She gave the pictures to a city newspaper called Satyajug.
Those became her first published photographs.
She started getting Rs 5 per photograph at Satyajug, while the actual cost of creating a photograph was Rs 15.
So she started collecting the blank rolls senior photographers threw away in dustbins. Using these, she reduced the cost of production.
Das freelanced for Ananda Bazar Patrika for some time and got a job later at another Bengali newspaper Aaj Kal.
After establishing herself as a photojournalist, she started freelancing for the Press Trust of India, where she got Rs 100 per picture.