Grime pays for servant who wrote a bestseller

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The Times May 12, 2006 Baby Halder’s book about servant life reflects the experiences of millions of Indian women (Tom Pietrasik) Grime pays for servant who wrote a bestsellerFrom Amrit Dhillon in Delhi BABY HALDER used to clean, scrub, mop, dust, iron, wash up and cook for Indian families like a good Indian housemaid while raising three children on her own. But last night she was playing a very different role — that of celebrity author. Her account of life as a maid to the metropolitan rich is already a bestseller in Bengali, and journalists were lining up for interviews as the English-language version of A Life Less Ordinary

was published. Her life story, which recalls George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion with Ms Halder cast as Eliza Doolittle, is no different from that of millions of poor young women who flee rural poverty to do domestic work in the homes of the urban rich. Ms Halder, 31, was married at 12 to a man twice her age, became a mother at 14, and suffered beatings from her husband. She left her home on the outskirts of Calcutta in 1999, and caught a train to Delhi with her children to find work. “The families I worked for were selfish,” says Ms Halder. “They had me working all day and then at midnight wanted me to massage their feet. They didn’t care that I had no time for my children.” Her luck changed a

year later when she found a job in the home of a retired professor of anthropology in Gurgaon, near Delhi. Prabodh Kumar is the grandson of Prem Chand, one of the greatest literary figures in Hindi literature. He noticed her dusting the bookshelves with excessive care and saw her leafing through those in Bengali, her native language. He encouraged her to read. One day, he suggested that she should write her life story. He bought her a notebook and pen and told her to get started. “The day I showed him the first few pages of my writing I felt so shy that I gave him the notebook and quickly left the room. But he loved it and urged me to continue,” she says. Ms Halder says she is indebted to “Prabodhji”, not just for his advice on writing, but for treating her like a human being. Many Indian families treat housemaids with contempt, pay poor wages and moan if they take a day off. “He has treated me like his family. One day when he was reading the

newspapers and I poured his tea, he asked me to sit down and read the papers too. It knocked me sideways. No one does this with a maid,” said Ms Halder, who continues to work for Professor Kumar. She used to write after 10pm, having served Prabodhji his dinner and supervised her children’s homework. Reading was done in snatches during the day between chores. Ms Halder is not letting the fame go to her head. Her publishers found it difficult to get her to agree to interviews. “She kept saying, ‘What about Prabodhji’s lunch?’, or ‘What about my ironing?’,” said Anita Roy, commissioning editor at Zubaan Books. Ms Roy said that readers looking for great literary style, narrative drive or subtle plots will be disappointed. “What’s appealing is the raw, direct way she writes. It gives you a window into another way of being. It’s a voice you normally never hear in India,” she said. For Ms Halder, who is now writing her second book, the best thing about

being an author is the pride it has given her children. “When people used to ask them what I did, they felt ashamed to say I was a maid. Now they say, ‘My mother is a writer’.” THE MAID'S STORY: EXTRACTS FROM A LIFE LESS ORDINARY “The burden of work increased so much that I barely had time to breathe. I couldn’t understand why but people were always after me: do this, do that, there’s work to be done here, and here . . . Sometimes I did not have the time to cook proper food for my children and no one seemed concerned. Often I’d be working till 11 at night and there was no concern that my children might be hungry.” “Memsahib’s daughter worked in an office and had to leave home by 8 before which I had to get her breakfast ready. In the evenings, she came back around six. I was required to wait at the gate for her bus to arrive and carry her bag and anything else she had and walk her into the house. Some days, if I was

late, I’d get a shouting. I also had to keep some fruit ready for her to eat, and as soon as she sat down I’d offer her tea, water, sherbet, whatever she wanted. Then, if she wanted, I had to massage her head or her feet; the work was never-ending.” A Life Less Ordinary is published by Zubaan and Penguin India and is available from www.zubaanbooks.com . Peter H

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