A Scholar Faces A Beggar Poem by Abhijit Roy

An eccentric Math professor of the yesteryear,
Liveth with a penchant for his discipline;
‘Thou knoweth no reckoning’.
Was what he boasted of all his life.

His theories got wide acclaim,
None could argue with him,
For they were so solidly proven;
Sculpted like any of the Roman stones.

Could perform precise computations,
With numbers, no matter how long.
An infallible maestro of tables.
Could draw inconceivable geometrical shapes,
And write their equations – of line, plane, and space.

Things took some turn,
When a beggar who’d heard of this geek,
Came across one day.
The Scholar was asked for money,
And he argued: ”Quantify your demands.”
Smugly did the beggar say,
“What about the piles of papers, you wrote?
How about the economic models you’d earned praise for? ”
Oh, yes, I’m unlettered.,
Unlike you, atleast I do no reckoning, before asking.”


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Abhijit Roy
Place: Guwahati, Assam, India
Date: 12-March-2011