Main content

From child bride to literary sensation

Baby Halder grew up loving books, but by the age of only 12, she was married and no longer at school. She later fled to start a new life, and became a globally best-selling author

Baby Halder is an internationally best-selling author and a literary superstar at home in India. But her road to stardom was a difficult one, full of interruptions and adversity. Her mother left the family when Baby was seven, she was taken out of education, and at the age of 12 she found herself pregnant and in an arranged marriage. Eventually, years later, Baby fled the marriage and became a domestic servant in Delhi, where her employer, an anthropology professor, encouraged her to begin writing, launching her on a glittering writing career.

Gary Cranitch is an Australian underwater photographer who recently captured the image of a lifetime, the remarkably rare moment when coral spawns on the Great Barrier reef.

James R. Hagerty is an obituary writer for the American newspaper the Wall Street Journal. He鈥檚 recently started writing his own obituary, and shares with us some of the lessons he鈥檚 learned from it.

Image: Baby Halder writing at home in Kolkata
Credit: Getty Images

Available now

53 minutes

Last on

Wed 4 Mar 2020 04:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 3 Mar 2020 12:06GMT
  • Tue 3 Mar 2020 16:06GMT
  • Tue 3 Mar 2020 18:06GMT
  • Tue 3 Mar 2020 21:06GMT
  • Tue 3 Mar 2020 23:06GMT
  • Wed 4 Mar 2020 03:06GMT
  • Wed 4 Mar 2020 04:06GMT

Contact Outlook

Contact Outlook

Info on how we might use your contribution on air

Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

Step into someone else鈥檚 life and expect the unexpected