In the vast, often self-indulgent landscape of contemporary poetry, Badri Raina's "Stout and Tender" arrives like a sharp intake of breath on a cold morning.

It is a substantial collection - his third and largest anthology-that refuses the easy comfort of "pure" aesthetics. Instead, Raina, an academic-turned-poet with the heart of a journalist and the soul of a philosopher, offers a work that is as much a moral compass as it is a literary achievement.

To read "Stout and Tender" is to encounter a mind that is deeply, almost painfully, awake. Raina does not merely observe; he engages. He takes the "stout" realities of our era - the brutalities, the ironies, and the slow erosion of humanism - and meets them with a "tender" insistence on empathy.

The poem "Pure Poet" serves as the central manifesto for the collection, highlighting Raina's commitment to social remedy over abstract art. One of the most striking aspects of this collection is Raina's rejection of the "ivory tower" poet. In this poem, the "Pure Poet" addresses the criticism that he is too concerned with the world's failings, rather than the abstract beauty of verse. His response is a manifesto for the socially conscious writer:

"But when I see a shattered bone,

Or famine in the eye,

I would much less a poet be,

More a remedy."

This verse sets the tone for the entire volume. Raina is "askance" at any empathy that remains at a distance. He compares a pure thought that doesn't lead to action to a "vase of filigree fine, / With no flowers in it." It is this desire to be "the flowers"-the living, breathing evidence of concern-that drives the collection.

Raina's wit is perhaps at its most "assuming" when he turns his gaze toward the modern Indian middle class. In his "Hippopotamus" series, he uses a rhythmic, almost nursery-rhyme cadence to deliver stinging critiques of societal apathy. He describes a class that "ogles at the fop in front, / and quarantines its rear," a group more concerned with "Pentium perfection" and "Philips underwear" than the crumbling democracy outside their windows.

There is a light, satirical touch here that makes the "stout" truth easier to swallow, yet the landing is always heavy. He writes of the middle class:

"It simply cannot understand

Why people live in the nation."

It is a devastating line, a commentary on the disconnect between the affluent and the "people" who actually constitute the country's backbone. Through these verses, Raina captures the "viscerality" of a culture that drowns its grouses in whiskey at farm-house weddings while its parents lie in ICUs, comforted only by "Archies Cards."

Raina does not shy away from the most contentious issues of our time, particularly the shifting landscape of Kashmir. Raina is himself a former captain of the Jammu & Kashmir Ranji Trophy team, which, decades after his time, has won the trophy this year. But his concerns are with less joyous matters. In his poem "Normalcy," he adopts a chillingly calm tone to describe the aftermath of political upheaval. The poem is a masterclass in irony, where the "stout" hand of the state is felt in every line:

"The trust of the people will be won

Through propagation.

And, if that does not work,

Through the pellet gun."

The "tender" element here is found in the heartbreak behind the irony. He notes that while landlines may be up and schools open, "no normalcy can be lasting / Without an element of fear." It is a sobering reminder that the "nation" often abides at the expense of its "people".

Perhaps the most haunting poem in the collection is "Good Samaritan." It recontextualizes the biblical parable within the "stout" brutality of contemporary mob violence. Raina describes a scene where bystanders prioritize the "purity" of their cause over the life of a dying man:

"They made sure the cows were home

While his lungs spouted blood;

They made sure their tea was warm,

While he waited to be dead."

The juxtaposition of the mundane (warm tea, bringing cows home) with the horrific (spouting blood) is profoundly effective. It captures the "stabbing death of humanism" that Raina laments throughout the book. He identifies these actors not as monsters, but as people who believe they are "serving a primal rage" to usher in a "pure spiritual age."