Father returnung home

Father Returning Home – Dilip Chitre

This poem is all about alienation of a man from a modern man-made world. The people who a man cares about and works for ironically, ignores and estranges him. The old man’s son, who feels grief and guilt down his heart write about his father with an honorable honesty. He writes about his father returning home which at first seems that his father is returning home after a long time, but through the poem it is clarified that it is something of a casual task which is not special or attention gaining at all, and rather represents the distance between them.
The first stanza describes the journey of the old man in the train while coming back to home. The son displays image of his father standing among silent commuters in yellow light which indicates evening and, the old age of his father. He does not seems to care about himself as his “shirts and pants are soggy” but he moves onward. Emphasis on his isolation begins by the son describing, “I can see him getting off the train, like a word dropped from a long sentence” which points out his irrelevance to other commuter. It symbolizes that the journey can and will continue without him and just how unimportant his is to the rest of society. The old man’s spirit is alive and he hurries onward, giving the reader a hint of something good going to take place.
The second stanza comes back again to estrangement of the father and showing that his family too, ignores him. The two words, “home again” presents that it is something very casual and insignificant, going against the title. He is given stale chapatti and week tea which shows that he is deserted even from his family. He has to go to the toilet to “contemplate” which further develops the companionless atmosphere. Idea of old age and weakness also comes through as he trembles at the sink. The son mentioned himself along with his siblings “sullen” as they “have often refused to share jokes and secrets with him”, which somewhere down the line, hints that the son is guilty of his behavior with his father and now he feels the grief of his father getting old and the fear of losing him, he now can empathize with him as he grew old to be an adult. He says that his father will dream of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking of nomads entering nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass, which is an allusion to the Aryans who came to India through khaida pass. Although it reflects that urbanization creates loneliness, I think it is very strange ending to the poem.
The structure of the poem is made up of two stanzas, each having 12 lines. As there are two points about train and home, this structure denotes both of these equal space adding to the effect of the lonely atmosphere. The poem is mainly free verse, consisting a mix of long and short sentences, which helps to gain individual attention to each sentence and lets the reader sympathize with each factor of the old man. The repetitive shift of moods in the poem gives it a unique style while it also emphasize the alienation of the aged. There is a visible change in tones after 9 lines of each stanza. The poem tends to start with a pleasant mood as the title suggests excitement of a kid as his father returns but through the first 9 lines, it comes to be a lonely aura. The last 3 lines shows a transition in tone as the elderly hurries forward to his home. But again, the next 9 lines of second stanza comes to the deserted ambience of the father. The tone shifts again in the last three lines as the old man going to sleep and dream about nomads entering subcontinent through a narrow pass. The effect that the writer wants to achieve and has achieved successfully is that that he has shown that although so many obstacles facing his life, the old many still manages to continue and move forward with his life.
The poem consists of many devices such as sibilance, enjambment, simile, repetition, visual imagery, kinesthetic imagery and irony which all contributes to the theme of estrangement in the poem. For reference, the sibilance in the first paragraph creates the effect of silence, the simile – “Like a word dropped from a long sentence” helps the reader understand how the son feels about his father and how lonely he is. The repetition of “ing” in the last few lines- “listening”, “thinking”, “dreaming” all symbolizes the endless journey which will not be stopped or paid attention because of that old man. The effective diction plays its role too as phrases such as – “grey platform” supports cheerlessness, “cold water”, ”few droplets” symbolizes memory which are running past him while “home again” reports to the reader that father returning home is a usual and unimportant task instead of something special.
Through the poem, Dilip Chitre has successfully given the message of urbanization creating distance and estrangement/alienation of a man from mankind, keeping the medium of this an old man, who is cornered by loneliness and cheerlessness, while the speaker is his own son, guilty of how he, his family and the world has treated his father.