Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar’s work features excerpts taken from their documentary film ‘Saacha (The Loom)’ that explores modes and politics of representation and decline of the urban working class in the age of globalisation through poetry and the relevance of art in the social milieu. The selected excerpts highlight the poetry of the critically acclaimed Dalit poet Narayan Surve, an outstanding Marathi poet who created a unique style of writing poems using the colloquial language of workers using a conversational prose-like style. He was based in the city of Mumbai, the birth place of the Indian textile industry and the Indian industrial working class. Abandoned soon after birth, Surve grew up in the streets of Mumbai, taught himself to read and write and actively worked in the workers’ union movement, also supporting himself as a schoolteacher. Often championed as a proletarian poet, Narayan Surve later received for his poetry several prestigious awards including a Padma Shri for excellence in Literature & Education, amongst the highest civilian award in the Republic of India by the Government.