Father Returning Home by Dilip Chitre - NOTES

Father Returning Home by Dilip Chitre

Stanza 1: The first stanza of Father Returning Home describes the train journey of his father while returning home one evening. The father stands among commuters in the yellow light of a local compartment. The poet describes his father’s reaction against the sights of the suburbs that pass by. His father remains unmoved by the sights because they are too familiar to him. We hardly pay attention to those places where we travel every day, unless the place has something interesting to offer. Same was with the poet’s father.

The poet then describes his father’s pathetic condition, as he travels during the rainy season. His clothes become damp and dirty. The black raincoat that he wears becomes stained with mud. His bag crumbles with the heavy load of the books. Due to old age, the poet’s father’s eyesight has become poor and therefore he finds difficulty to move about in the dark.

The poet says that he can see his father getting down the train ‘like a word dropped from a long sentence.’ The sentence is highly unique and it provides an evocative image of an old man who gets down from the train as if he is no longer relevant to it. The poet then sees his father hurrying through the long, grey platform.
The man seems to be as old as the platform, who has been using it as a part of his routine. He crosses the railway tracks and hurries home through muddy lanes on a rainy day. This is indicated by his chappals which are sticky with mud. This stanza portrays the monotonousness of the old man, who sustains the vagaries of weather as well as the estrangement from the man-made.
Stanza 2: The second stanza, the poet represents the alienation of his father that he experiences in his own dwelling. The poet tells us that his father drinks a weak tea and eats a stale chapatti when he comes back home. This shows that the even his basic requirements are not properly carried out by his family. A sense of pity for the poet’s father arises in us, what do you think?
The father is then seen going into a contemplative mood after reading some kind of a philosophical book. He goes to the toilet and contemplates over man’s alienation from the man-made world. This exhibits that the man is visibly upset with his predicament. He is terribly shaken when he comes out of the toilet and trembles while he washes his hands at the wash basin. It seems that he trembled not only because of the cold water but also due to the thoughts that came into his mind while he was thinking in the toilet.
The father finds himself all alone in his room as he is written off by his children.
The children do not interact with their father; they do not share their joys or sorrows with him. To compensate their company, the father listens to the radio. Then he goes to sleep. In his sleep, he dreams about his ancestors and grandchildren.

It seems that he is trying to communicate with his ancestors who had entered the subcontinent through the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas in the past. The dream mirrors that the old man is either thinking about his past (his ancestors) or his future (his grandchildren). It is a kind of relief to him from his mundane routine, devoid of any human contact.

Theme: The poem, Father Returning Home focuses on the theme of alienation or estrangement experienced by the aged in their twilight years. Dilip Chitre talks about his own father and through the poem, we get to know the alienation, isolation and misery experienced by elderly people, especially in cities.
Style: Dilip Chitre’s poetry follows the tradition of dramatic monologue. In the poem Father Returning Home, the poet talks about his father’s loneliness and alienation from the man-made world. He has brought out the emotions of his father, who is isolated from his family as well as from the outside world. He has painted the mundane and fatiguing routine of his father in order to highlight the darkness and misery lurking inside his father’s soul.
Imagery in the poem: The poet uses some fine imagery to describe the lurking loneliness in the man’s soul as he travels in the local train. To convey the ‘twilight atmosphere’ the poet has used a number of descriptive words in the poem, like evening train, yellow light, unseeing eyes, his eyes dimmed by age, fade homeward and gray platform.
An example of imagery is found in the following lines describing the father’s routine of travelling by a local train,-
“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.”
In the above mentioned lines, the pathos of an old father, returning to his mundane home late in the evening, is highlighted. A wonderful image is used to describe poet’s father getting down the train. The poet says that he can see his father getting down the train ‘like a word dropped from a long sentence.’ The sentence is highly unique and it provides an evocative image of an old man who gets down from the train as if he is no longer relevant to it. This imagery is used to depict the monotonousness and meaninglessness in the father’s life.

The imagery of dream has been used to show the connection the poet’s father has with his past and his future. He dreams about his ancestors and his grandchildren. Thus, it signifies his feelings that he has suppressed in himself and cannot express openly.

The poem Father Returning Home is autobiographical in nature. The poem draws a picture of the poet’s father. He speaks about the loneliness that his father goes through in his everyday life. Don’t be a silent reader, a thought or two would be appreciated.