A Life Less Ordinary: A Memoir Baby Halder,
Publisher: Harper
ISBN: 0061255815
DDC: 305.489624092
Edition: Hardcover; 2007-05-01
Summary:
Abandoned by her mother, beaten by her father, and hurriedly married
off at twelve to an abusive man twice her age, Baby Halder's early
life was marked by overwhelming challenges and heartbreak. Exhausted
and desperate, the young mother finally fled with her three children
in 1999 to Delhi, where she found work as a maid in some of the
city's wealthiest homes. Expected to serve her employers' every
grueling demand, Halder faced a staggering workload that often left
her no time to care for her own children. The young woman's luck
finally turned when she started working for Prabodh Kumar, a retired
anthropology professor who noticed Halder's interest in his library.
Kumar helped her to read his books and newspapers—which she devoured
enthusiastically—then suggested that she write down her own life
story. In A Life Less Ordinary, the fascinating result of her writing
sessions with Kumar, Halder speaks for a multitude of Indian women,
revealing a world of poverty and subjugation few outsiders have heard
about. Halder writes simply and candidly of her life as a young girl,
and later as a struggling mother. Without a trace of melodrama or
self-pity, she describes her experiences of growing up poor and
neglected, struggling to manage children and a violent husband while
she herself was only fourteen years old, and, finally, of escaping
her past ultimately to triumph as a writer. Already a huge success in
India, where it has been published in Hindi, Bengali, and several
other languages, A Life Less Ordinary is an astonishing story of
strength, courage, and determination that continues to inspire
readers everywhere.
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