One hot summer morning in 1935, Hindi poet Suryakant Tripathi Nirala came across a woman worker hammering stones to pieces by the roadside in Allahabad. His poem “Wah todti patthar” (She breaks stones) places the quiet dignity of her toil against the oppressive demands of the unforgiving sun and contrasts it with the shelter and stark inequalities of life under the buildings and mansions around.
