2.5 Father Returning Home (Appreciation)

 

English Poem Appreciations 12th HSC Board
Section Two (Poetry)

Unit 2.5

Father Returning Home

Father Returning Home

                                 - Dilip Chitre

My father travels on the late evening train

Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light

Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes

His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat

Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books

Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age

Fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.

Now I can see him getting off the train

Like a word dropped from a long sentence.

He hurries across the length of the grey platform,

Crosses the railway line, enters the lane,

His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward.

Home again, I see him drinking weak tea, 

Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.

He goes into the toilet to contemplate

Man's estrangement from a man-made world.

Coming out he trembles at the sink,

The cold water running over his brown hands,

A few droplets cling to the greying hair on his wrists.

His sullen children have often refused to share

Jokes and secrets with him.

He will now go to sleep

Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming

Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking 

Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.

                                                  - Dilip Chitre

Q.  With the help of the following points, write a poetic appreciation of the poem      'Father Returning Home.'

• About the poem/poet and the title

• The theme

• Poetic style

• The language/ poetic devices used in the poem    

• Special features

• Message, values, morals in the poem

• Your opinion about the poem

 

Appreciation of the poem :-

Father Returning Home

The title 'Father Returning Home' is very suitable. The poet Dilip Chitre was a celebrated bilingual poet and translator with a remarkable work in Marathi and English. This poem is taken from "Travelling in a Cage".

The poem is about a suburban commuter who work hard in his life for his family. The theme depicts the isolation, loneliness and alienation suffered by any old person. It also depicts his dull, monotonous, exhausting and equally pitiable daily routine. Despite working hard for his family throughout the life, the father feels uncared and his children refuse to share their joys and sorrow with him. They consider him as an outsider or insignificant. This very painful loneliness is a symbol of man's isolation from the materialistic man-made world. The poem is written in simple narrative form which is a monologue. The poem consists of two stanzas of 12 lines each. The poem is written in free verse. The figures of speech used in the poem are Transferred Epithet, Synecdoche, Simile, Personification, Climax, Alliteration. The poem conveys the message to younger generation to respect elder people and treat them with dignity. They are treasure of wisdom and experience, we can learn a lot from them. 

I like the poem because the topic is very relevant for the present time and has left a mark on me and made this poem unforgettable.

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