Koyapet and Kamarpukur - all within six miles of it - for the purchase of several necessaries of life like cloth, and for the marketing of the surplus products of their fields. In spite of its backwardness, life in it was fairly happy before the ravages of malaria carried misery into its homes in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The monotony of the villagers' life was frequently relieved by the public celebrations of the great Hindu festivals like Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Dol Purnima and the rest, and by the special worship of various deities, be it of Sitala or of Dharma, of Santinath, the Siva image of the neighbouring village of Sihor or of Simhavahini, the Mother deity of Jayrambati itself.
In a population consisting mainly of agriculturists and artisans, the village had only two Brahmin families, the Banerjis and the Mukherjis, The Holy Mother was a daughter of the Mukherji family. Her father Ramachandra Mukherji had three younger brothers - Trailokya Nath, a scholar well-versed in Sanskrit, who met with premature death, and Isvar Chandra, and Nilmadhav who remained lifelong celibate. All the brothers lived as a joint family.
Ramachandra was a poor man, but he was virtuous, upright, and an example of the Brahmanical ideal. 'My father,' said the Holy Mother in later days, 'was a very good man. He was a great devotee of Rama. He had unswerving devotion to the ideal of a Brahmin's life. He could not accept gifts indiscriminately. He loved to smoke, and as he smoked - he was so simple and humble - he would address in a friendly way every passer-by that crossed his door