Father Returning Home Appreciation of the Poem

 Appreciation of the Poem

Father Returning Home

1. About the poem, poet and title: Father Returning Home is a poem written by Dilip Chitre, an Indian poet. He is a celebrated bilingual poet and translator. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award both for poetry as well as for his well known work ‘Says Tuka’. He had started translation of literary work of Saints in Marathi at the age of 16. Exile, alienation, self-disintegration and death are the major themes of his works.

This poem is taken from ‘Travelling in a Cage’. It draws a portrait of a suburban commuter. It depicts a forced alienation at home, which is reflected through the stale food and lack of sharing.

2. Theme: It is a poem about a lonely estranged old family man. He cannot be abreast with the fast paced materialistic world. He is travelling late evening train. He is standing among the silent passengers in the yellow light. At home he has been given a stale chapatti and weak drinking tea. His children are not interested in chatting with him about various issues so he likes reading books and thinking about the past and changing present. The poet sympathizes the old aged person in the poem.

3. Poetic style:

The poem consists of two parts of 12 lines each. It is written in free verse with no particular metre or rhyme scheme.

4. Language/Poetic devices used in the poem:  The language used in the poem is very easy and simple with full of symbolic expressions and poetic devices like simile. The First Person narration has been used.  The poet presents this poem in a form of dramatic monologue. This poem is a free verse because there is no yet rhyme scheme and no meter. This poem includes two twelve line stanzas and the poetic devices used in the poem are imagery, alliteration, simile, personification and enjambment.

4. Special features / Novelties/Focusing element: Dilip Chitre depicts the poor neglected state of the old people in our society. The tone of the poem is a little depressing and bleak. The language is that of detachment and estrangement. The poet has used present participle in the poem for example -standing, unseeing, getting off, eating etc. The poet uses many symbols in the poem. In the line he goes into the toilet to contemplate man's estrangement from the man-made world.

5. Message/Morals in the Poem: The main message of the poem is the alienation and isolation of the old people in the modern society. The description given in the poem emphasizes his loneliness and world weariness. In spite of his wretched belongings, he continues his work tirelessly

 6. Your opinion about the Poem: I think that the life of the old person is very pathetic. We do not want to neglect them in the society. We should pay attention to them and mix up with them and share a lot of information with them.