A Life Less Ordinary (Aalo Aandhari) is a unique memoir by domestic worker-turned-writer Baby Haldar who was abandoned early by her mother and married off soon, at twelve, by her father to a man twice her age. She delivered her first child at thirteen. The New York Times called it an Indian “Angela’s Ashes” – “a story of a girl with bleak upbringing in northeastern India in the 1970’s.” Haldar left her abusive husband and moved to Delhi with her three children in the late nineties where she took up work as a domestic help, only to be disappointed again.

In India, this is a common story. What’s extraordinary is how the protagonist turned her crisis into an opportunity when her then new employer Prabodh, a retired professor of anthropology and a grandson of Munshi Premchand, bought her a pen and a notebook and asked her to write her thoughts in the hope that it would distract her from her problems.

“She wrote in the kitchen, propping her notebook between the vegetables and dishes, she wrote in between sweeping and swabbing, after the dishes and before, and late at night after putting her children to bed,” wrote Sheela Reddy in Outlook. Her mentor was bemused: “I need so much preparation before I can get down to writing anything, my chair, my study, my writing materials, and here was this girl writing as easily as if she was chopping vegetables.”

Haldar continued to write more books and her popularity has taken her on tours to big cities such as Paris, Frankfurt and Hong Kong. Her books have been translated into 21 languages, including 13 foreign languages. She still wonders why her story has caused so much stir, but for her it’s not the fame that’s the real reward. “My children no longer have to say I'm a servant.” Now they say proudly: “My mother is a writer.” For this alone, her journey has been worth it.

Published in 2002, translated by Urvashi Butalia, published in 2006.