“... Panting in sweltering summers,
Shivering in winter nights, drenched in monsoon rains,
I turned poorer.
But you were tireless; you came again.
‘Poverty is a meaningless term ...
You have suffered deprivation all your life ...’
My suffering was endless...
But you did not forget me;
This time, hand knotted into a fist, you said in a rousing voice,
‘Wake up, wake up, you the dispossessed of the world ...’
... Many years passed, by now you were cleverer. ...
You brought a blackboard and carefully chalked a neat, long line on it;
Your strain showed; wiping sweat from your forehead, you said,
‘This line you see, below it, much below it you live.’
Fabulous! ...
Thank you for my poverty, deprivation, dispossession...
Above all, thank you for the neat, long line, that luminous gift.
... My profound well wisher, thank you many times over.”

–From Tarapada Roy, ‘The Poverty Line’