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Baby Halder: domestic helper turned author

Married at 12, a mother at 13, Indian domestic helper Baby Halder, whose third book is about to be published, has come a long way from a life of abuse and destitution – not that you would know it, writes Amrit Dhillon

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Baby Halder in her rooftoop home outside New Delhi. Photo: Simon de Trey-White

Baby Halder may be a feted author on the verge of having her third book published but the maid in her is never far from the surface.

When I step onto the terrace of the house where Halder lives, her black cocker spaniel, the unruly Coco, sinks her teeth into the fleece jacket I am carrying, dragging it to the ground. When we manage to retrieve it, Halder, looking stricken, goes to the bathroom and returns with a box of Surf washing powder, intending to wash my jacket there and then. I have to stop her and remind her that I am here to interview her, the author.

Nevertheless, Halder, who lives in Gurgaon, outside the Indian capital of New Delhi, continues to work as a maid and says she sometimes forgets she is now an acclaimed author, too. And who can blame her?

This is a country where domestic helpers are not supposed to answer back – even when they are being beaten.

A maid writing a book good enough to be published is a feat unprecedented in the annals of Indian literary history, a feat Halder, 39, achieved eight years ago with A Life Less Ordinary, a searing account of her brutal childhood, even more brutal marriage and a series of vicious employers.

That book has since been translated into 24 languages and has taken her on tours in Hong Kong, Germany and France. She has attended literary festivals in India and won awards. The global media profiled her at length when A Life Less Ordinary was published because it was a sensational story – a book written by one of the faceless, voiceless domestic servants who cook, dust, mop, shop and do laundry all day for the Indian middle class but are invisible as individuals.

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