Scenes from a life:
A realization of the horror of her new married life comes suddenly. Soon she is pregnant and, barely understanding what has happened, finds herself being rebuked by the doctor for “choosing” at so young an age to have a child. Two more children follow; then her husband splits her head open with a rock after he sees her speaking with another man, and her elder sister is beaten and strangled by her own husband.
That’s part of the synopsis, in today’s New York Times, of Baby Halder’s memoir, recently published in English by Penguin India, coming after the great success of the Hindi and original Bengali versions.
Baby Halder, now 34, is a domestic worker whose gift for reading, and ultimately composing, literature was discovered by her employer, retired anthropology professor Prabodh Kumar, in Gurgaon. After reading the article, I was surprised that we hadn’t discussed this book yet at the Mutiny, although commenter Dhaavak (who hasn’t been around lately — where you at?) mentioned it here.
I’m looking forward to reading this book, a classic exercise in giving voice to the voiceless. A few days ago on the thread about Sri Lankan maids in Lebanon, there was a tangential debate about the extent of domestic worker abuse in Indian households. Of course, it’s hard to measure. Baby Halder’s own experience veers from one extreme to another: after she flees Murshidabad and comes to work in the Delhi area, her employers range from the ones who have her lock her children in an attic all day, to Mr. Kumar, who coached her to find her voice.
But the bigger point here is that it’s not just the employment experiences of domestic workers that are misunderstood; it’s their whole life stories. For so many employers in societies where domestic labor is widespread, when workers go home “to the village,” they disappear into a black box. At most, perhaps we learn of the problems their families back home face and for which we are asked to contribute some money. Of their back stories, their childhood and formative moments, we usually know very little, and often don’t care to know at all.
The Hindu has a nice story and interview that gives a little more detail:
“My employer Prabodh ji has lots of books, including many Bengali books. While dusting them, I always used to think if one day I could read them. Even as a child, I always wanted to go to school. Despite our poverty, my mother never stopped us from going to school and even after she left us, I continued going. I studied till class 7th. So when Prabodh ji once saw me a little lost while dusting the books he asked me whether I would like to read a Bengali book, to which I said yes. He gave me Taslima Nasreen’s autobiography and soon I realised her life is so similar to me,” she narrates. Not stopping at Nasreen, Baby soon picked books by Mahasweta Devi, Shanko Ghosh, Charat Chandra Bangopadhay, Rabindranath Tagore, Ashapurna Devi, Nasrul Islam and more such Bengali luminaries.
This is, among other things, a compelling example of the vital importance of girls’ primary education. (Here’s a map showing female literacy rates in India, district by district.) It’s also a wonderful story. Much respect to Baby Halder!
That, my friend, is a very moving post – a truly astonishing individual. Thanks a lot!
Regards,
I read the article in NYT yesterday. Amazing. She is writing another book.
Maybe, I should visit Dhavaak’s blog. He might be in India. He does transnational business.
I can’t read Bengali so will wait for translation. I think I can understand tiny bit Bengali by watching all the Satyajit Ray movies.
Well written, Siddhartha.
Yep, very cool post. I read it this morning on my way to work and wondered how long it would take for it to get on SM.
She’s definitely encountered more than her fair share of struggles and has come out on top. Pretty amazing person who seems quite humble about her accomplishments, too.
I was actually surprised at how well Maharashtra was doing about female literacy (compared to its neighboring states), though it’s nothing compared to Kerala’s percentages.
thanks siddharta for posting this incredible story.
Correction: There is Hindi and English translation available as you mentioned. Sorry, Siddhartha.
I love the excerpt you pulled from the interview- it so perfectly captures how literature can have such an impact on a life. If I have not said it before, it is fantastic to have you in the new guard of Mutineers!
thank you, brimful. goddess saraswati is in the house!
lovely story…thanks for posting it.
Funny, I only just heard of her a month ago when filmmaker Anu Menon submitted her 23-min documentary about Baby Halder to a small free film festival I’m organizing in London. We’re going to be showing it sometime on Sept 10 in Brick Lane, if anyone’s around. 😉
Awww very warm. Thank you for posting. I absolutely love stories about human triumphs.
Thanks for bringing up the subject. On the same theme, On rate of suicide in the Gulf and pro-active steps being taken by the Indian missions.
269 Indians committed suicide in Gulf http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/02gulf.htm?q=np&file=.htm
Regards Amit
How the hell is that “on the same theme”, Amit?
I think Amit is refering to the fact that many in the imported labor force become depressed at their hard life. From the post:
Great story….imagine NYT gave up Updike space for Halder spirit:-)
she says ….”My employer Prabodh ji …” …I was wondering why she still works as a maid. What is keeping her from moving on?
Grand post. I look forward to reading this book, which brought to mind my reading of Narendra Jadhav’s Untouchables, which was released in the United States last year and received favorable notices in many places, including Business Week. Jadhav is a Maratha Dalit who has risen to become a Governor in the Reserve Bank of India, and the book is a inter-generational recollection of his family’s struggles and triumphs, and ends with an essay by his daughter who is currently a student at Johns Hopkins.
::HereÂ’s a map showing female literacy rates in India, district by district.::
daaaamn – hard to believe that’s a map showing female literacy in 2006! casts an interesting light on assertions of india’s coming of age, so to speak, doesn’t it? of course, it would be interesting to see a breakdown of female literacy rates by age group since i imagine that relatively younger females are more likely to be literate than their older relatives.
interesting post!
my bad – i think the map reflected census info. from 2001 (but still!)
This has got to be the beginning of a sea change….the voiceless in India have always had advocates, but now they are beginning to speak for themselves. What a thrilling story. How inspiring that nothing could destroy her desire for knowledge and self-expression. And what an absolutely beautiful man this Kumar guy is.
As an aside – it’s also a kick in the pants to aspiring writers who sometimes feel too lazy or busy to write (she wrote in the attic at night after tending to the kids and the employer all day – Christ!)
the story was reported in 2004 soon after the bengali version came out. I was taking a class on South Asian lit. then and we had to read Taslima’s biography.
I loved the fact that she was working for the grandson of the great Hinddi-Urdu writer premchand, who encouraged her to read more and write.
Folks interested in domestic workers and their lives might find the recent report on them by Domestic Workers United / data center interesting. One of the constituent groups of DWU, I think, is Andolan, which is made up mostly of desi domestic workers.
Thanks for the map siddhartha
Njangalde nattilae pennungalae kandaalae ariyam… midukkimaar aanennu 🙂
Can’t wait for the whole map to be dark green. My closest buddy is going to India to work hard on it.
Hello, I was interested to see this and thought I might correct one mistake. Baby Halder’s book is not published by Penguin but by Zubaan, a feminist house in India, in collaboration with Penguin. Baby is our author, and friend, and I was sorry to see that despite our logo being displayed on the book first, and our name being there, the reviewer had missed us out. I wasn’t surprised though, it happens all the time that the small publsihers are rendered invisible, even by sympathetic journalists and the big ones get the credit! So just for the record, Baby’s book is published by Zubaan and Penguin, and it has been translated by me. I work with Zubaan.