The first Parikrma school started in a slum where there were 70,000 people living below the poverty line. Our first school was on a rooftop of a building inside the slums, a second story building, the only second story building inside the slums. And that rooftop did not have any ceiling, only half a tin sheet. That was our first school.

As a child, my mother had instilled in me a feeling of being born for a purpose.

I'm not a trained academic. Neither am I a veteran social worker. I was 26 years in the corporate world, trying to make organizations profitable. And then in 2003 I started Parikrma Humanity Foundation from my kitchen table.

Parikrma aims to give underprivileged children an equal chance at education so they can integrate with kids of private schools and, later, with the society. I want these children to hold high-end jobs at multinational companies and not work at the lower end of the spectrum.

If I'm getting on an airplane or anywhere, really, I have a lunch box and stuff. It's a running joke with my friends and family - everyone gives me lunch boxes for Christmas.

I have a really supportive family, which is really wonderful, but I'm not forcing everyone to watch my work every week.

I had barely turned 12 when my parents packed me off to Doon School. I was transported to a world of confusion with 600 other kids, no home-cooked food, no made-to-order clothes. It was a shock, but I adjusted.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.