Review Of ‘Served Cold From The Refrigerator’

Sutputra Radheye is the pen name of a researcher whose new poetry collection Served Cold from the Refrigerator (Red River) speaks boldly about social injustices. The poems, conversational in tone, often barely conceal anger and frustration with mainstream society’s prejudices of gender, regional identity, class and sexuality. Several interlocked themes run through the poems: poverty; the problems with the education system; belonging and national identity; and sexuality, love and longing.

The opening poem “why do i write poems” sets the tone for an entirely unpunctuated collection where the everyday colloquial English of the speaker is highlighted. The speaker invokes Ginsberg and Marx thus establishing himself as a well-read intellectual who might sell his poems “to buy food” while yearning “to produce/ art like Marx asked me to/from his grave”. The tone here is ironic and as the collection progresses the irony becomes darker, and the barely controlled anger at a hierarchical society that favours urban, heterosexual Anglophone elites builds.

The poet notes his Northeastern identity in “home” where people in Guwahati view his Bengali identity suspiciously, an “outsider” “waiting to snatch/their jobs and land” while in Kolkata his accent is mocked and people question his Bengaliness—he is “an alien in a familiar body”.

Poverty is a major theme that runs through this collection. Two poems highlight this: “my father’s cycle” and “during her pregnancy”. The first is shaped by the memory of a child riding in his father’s cycle as the people in cars stare at them. Although the cycle is now rusting and abandoned as his father prefers to walk or “be on public vehicle” the rusted cycle still evokes the shame of the stares from those riding in motors. The second poem “during her pregnancy” focuses on the poet’s mother sharing the memories of her pregnancy when they barely had enough to eat and survived on bread and water. Poignantly, the mother recalls riding on a bus to the government hospital for her delivery and being given two-day-old rice flavoured by chili paste which stank and had hair strands in it. The newborn will inherit multigenerational poverty along with a mother’s love tinged with guilt and helplessness.

The poet shatters the myth of education as the way out of poverty. In “admission”, he writes of passing an entrance exam for a Master’s but being unable to find the two lakhs needed for admission. His family income shattered by the pandemic does not provide for such financial demands. He writes, “if you are poor/you shouldn’t dare to dream.” This poem is prescient considering the Cockroach Janata Party-led protests by young students across the country underscoring the corruption of the education system and the barriers faced by rural and poor communities. The poet does not see easy solutions to this problem because the class system thrives on the exploitation of the poor.

Although formal education might be corrupt, the speaker seems to be an autodidact who is well-read in multiple literary traditions. The poems invoke Marx, Ginsberg, Faiz, Manto, Rilke and Agha Shahid Ali. While his critique is of the betrayal of the individual by the nation state, his spirit is inspired by his dialogue with these writers. He is drawn to the raw emotions in Ginsberg and Manto. He writes of Agha’s poems, “i found hope in him/when even the walls refused/to talk to me.” As a queer person, the speaker frankly discusses his sexuality in “ i wear sari sometimes” which lovingly describes his mother dressing him in frocks and saris, and he writes that it made her happy to dress him in a sari. The poem illustrates a loving and accepting relationship between mother and child.

Sutputra Radheye’s poems are powerful and leave the reader pondering questions of nation and belonging, of class and region, and the failures of democracy. The pen name is apt here; like Karna of the Mahabharat, who is named Sutputra and Radheye, the poet, like his eponymous character, fights for his rightful place in society. The poems move the reader through their honesty and raw emotions. As the poet says in the Author’s Note, he writes for those who are angry at the crumbling world and who are grieving its loss. However, he emphasises, “Don’t let the hope die. Guard it. Protect it. It is precious. After all, that is all we have left to survive.”

(Nalini Iyer is Professor of English at Seattle University, USA. She is also Chief Editor of South Asian Review)