The messbaris of Kolkata nursed many artistic talents in the first
half of the last century. Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhyay taught in a
school, lived in a boarding house and capitalised on that phase of his
life in Anubartan, a famous novel.

Humorist Sibram Chakravarty spent a lifetime in another and made it
famous.  Perhaps the average writer today can afford a better standard
of living which, some critics contend, has something to do with the
drop in the standards of their writing.