Father Returning Home

FATHER RETURNING HOME
Poet: Dilip Chitre
Critical Appreciation:
Father Returning Home expresses the inability of some not to belong to this world. The poem speaks about the inner loneliness of the poet’s father, the utter alienation he is experiencing in the twilight years. His train travel and time spent at home tells volumes of his alienation. There is no conversation in the train or any curiosity to see the suburban scenes. There are signs of irritation and discomfort from the fact that he was caught in the rain and his clothes were wet, that perhaps explains his disinterest and reason for being in a hurry. He ceases to matter to his children who no longer share anything with him. He finds solace in the toilet to be in dialogue with himself and be deep in contemplation. Trembling at the sink and droplets on the graying hairs on the wrist symbolizes his loneliness.
As his efforts to have a dialogue with the present are disrupted, the only possible communication is with the past or the future. All the while he is trying to evoke, through racial consciousness, the invisible connection with his ancestors who had entered the subcontinent through the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas in some distant past, the allusion to the migration of the Aryans to the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia. The present does not give him any happiness or any interaction. In order to compensate his lack of communication with the present, conveniently he travels to his ancestors in the past and to his grandchildren in the future. It is an impactful symbolism with which to end the poem giving sufficient scope for interpretation.
The poet uses fine imagery to describe the pain and misery lurking in the old man’s soul as he travels in the local train. His bag stuffed with books is falling apart refers to the state of the old man’s mind which has turned confused after all that knowledge it has acquired through years of dedicated study.
A wonderful image is used to describe his...