Baby Halder

Baby Halder (or Haldar) (born 1973/1974 in West Bengal) is an Indian housekeeper and author whose autobiography Aalo Aandhari or A Life Less Ordinary (ISBN 81-89013-67-X) describes her harsh life. Abandoned by her mother at age 7, raised by a neglectful father and married off at age 12, she later left an abusive husband with her three children for a life as housemaid in New Delhi and then encountered several exploitative employers. Her sister was killed by her husband.

She wrote after work, using plain matter-of-fact language and writing in Bengali. Her last employer, writer and retired anthropology professor Prabodh Kumar, had encouraged her and aided in editing the book. He translated it into Hindi and this version was published in 2002. The Bengali original was published in 2004. A Malayalam version appeared in 2005 and the English translation was published in 2006. The book became a best-seller in India. Translations into French and Japanese are being planned. As of 2006, Ms. Halder continues to work at a home in Gurgaon on a sequel to her bestseller.

The book has been translated into German in 2008. It is expected that the author herself will be visiting Germany in the company of her publisher, Preeti Gill of New Delhi, India to present the book to audiences there and explain to them the present situation of women in India. The prestigious Georg-August University in Goettingen, Germany has arranged for a seminar to be held with the author and her publisher on 23 October 2008. Further seminars are being arranged in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Krefeld, Halle, Kiel, Berlin and Heidelberg.Now she has two boys called Subodh and Tapas and a girl called Piya.

Sources

• In India, a Maid Becomes An Unlikely Literary Star. The New York Times, 2 August 2006
• A life less ordinary. The Hindu online edition, 15 May 2006
• From maid to bestselling author, BBC News, 21 September 2004