Father Returning Home

Write an appreciation of the poem “Father Returning Home”

       Dilip Purushottam Chitre was a notable Indian poet, painter and filmmaker of the modern era. He was a bilingual poet and translator with a remarkable work in Marathi and English. He was felicitated by the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award, both for poetry as well as for his well- known translation work ‘Says Tuka’, popular abhangas by Sant Tukaram.

     This poem is an account of an old man who works hard for his family but leads a monotonous life where no one takes care of him, converses with him or understands his feelings. The poet described it giving the example of his father.

      The poet shows the loneliness of an old man in the modern society by depicting a picture of his own father returning home from work. The poem expresses the generation gap between a “father” and “children”. This modern world has no place for elderly people.

           The poem is an autobiographical which consists of two stanzas of 12 lines each. This two stanza poem has been written in the form of a dramatic monologue. It does not follow any rhyme scheme as it is written in free-verse.

     The language of the poem is very easy and simple but full of symbolic expressions and poetic devices. The poet uses here  simile, alliteration, Transferred Epithet, Synecdoche, Paradox, personification, onomatopoeia and metaphor. The strong use of imagery makes the poem attractive.

       Visual imagery is a special feature of this poem like The words  “evening train”, “yellow light”, “eyes dimmed by age”, “grey  platform”, “soggy shirt and pants”, “black raincoat stained with mud”, “chappals sticky with mud”, “a word dropped from a long sentence” etc. are some examples of imagery.

        He poem gives us a message that old people are neglected and not cared in the modern society. No one thinks about their loneliness or care for them. Indirectly the poet gives us the message that we should take care of the elderly people and give them good treatment at home.

I like this poem most because of the simplicity with which it conveys a strong message to the readers.