Poverty has a shade of dignity as well.

I HAVE been living in Canada since 1996 after having lived in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi earlier. The little story that I am about to narrate relates to my last visit to Pakistan that was in 2015. Years have passed by, but I am unable to forget the images that I saw back then; images of a woman protecting her dignity even in extreme poverty.

That evening, we were returning from Sea View when my daughters pointed to the fried fish vendors on University Road close to Hassan Square in Gulshan-i-Iqbal. We stopped there to try it out and enjoyed the stuff. The setup also included a person, who was being addressed by one and all as lala, whose job was to keep the beggars away from destroying the customers' experience.

As we were just getting off after paying, a begging woman broke through the parameter and put her hand on my youngest daughter's head and asked that we buy food for her children. There was no negotiation. I quietly went to the cashier and ordered some fish for her and left quietly.

When I was seated in the car and we were getting out of the parking area, I saw another woman, who never tried to bug us with her tale of poverty. She was moving towards the table that we had just emptied and which had not been cleaned up yet.

Before I could even say a word, this woman opened her arms and from within the sheet of cloth she had wrapped herself with came out a little girl, perhaps six or seven years old. The woman picked up the leftovers, mostly fish skin, and gave it to the girl and just as quickly put the rest in a plastic bag she was carrying.

Then she moved to our bone plate and made a small roll of smaller fish-bones and put them in her mouth. She was clearly trying to fill her stomach with...