18 pages • 36 minutes read
Dilip ChitreFather Returning Home
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“The Unknown Citizen” by W. H. Auden (1940)
Minus Chitre’s complicated emotional bond to the father, Auden’s poem echoes the sense of how the modern urban world has all but decimated the individuality, personality, and emotional integrity of its residents. Like Auden, Chitre uses the poem to explore modern sociopolitical and economic realities, specifically how the crushing routine of consumer capitalism creates anxiety and despair, and a sense of a life wasted.
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman (1856)
In the surprisingly large genre of commuter poetry, Whitman’s celebration of the idea of commuting, written nearly a century before Chitre’s, captures the idealistic spiritual sensibility lost to Chitre and to his father. The two poems can be juxtaposed as they both recreate a late-day commute of weary city dwellers. Whitman’s poet, however, responds to the communal energy of the commute as a tonic suggestion of the spiritual oneness manifested in the organic sprawl of the modern city.
“Time and Time Again” by A. K. Ramanujan (1966)
A prominent voice in Chitre’s generation of postcolonial Indian poets, Ramanujan uses his grounding in the Hindu religion to offer a much broader concept of time than Chitre offers in his bleak picture of the father locked into his routine. “[L]isten to the clocktowers” (Line 1), Ramanujan’s speaker demands as he walks through a sprawling, nameless city. The speaker encourages the reader to hear every moment pass and not refuse to give the moment grace, purpose, and joy.
Further Literary Resources
Five Indian English Poets, ed. with an Introduction by Shirish Chindhade (2001)
Within the broader perspective of this study, Chitre is treated as an important postcolonial figure struggling to understand the implications of Indian independence on the identity of the country’s more than 1 billion citizens. Chapter 6 uses “Father Returning Home” to illuminate Chitre’s uncertainties over how an essentially agrarian Indian culture was to find purpose and meaning in an urban postcolonial world.
“Author of the Character: Dilip Chitre and Mumbai” by S. D. Sagar (2012)
The article, which focuses on “Father Returning Home,” suggests that given Chitre’s biography and his trauma over leaving the idyllic world of Vadadara, the urban sprawl of Mumbai becomes a character in his poetry. The city becomes the antagonist destroying families and skewering notions of personal worth and identity.
“Oscillations: A Brush Without Words and Words Without Images” by Dilip Chitre (2011)
This article/interview shows how Chitre’s conception of visual and verbal artistry defines his poetry. He compares his poems to paintings and his paintings to poems. He expounds on his theories of color and image in poetry as he recounts happy memories of working with his father in his print shop. Chitre’s expressionist paintings illustrate the article.
Listen to the Poem
By far, the most rewarding recording of the poem is an animated rendition posted to YouTube by Extramarks, a much-respected innovative educational platform that uses digital technology and visual supplements to enhance the study of literature.
The poem is read in an Indian dialect that captures the aural tone of the poem. The reader lingers over the long vowels and the “s” sounds to create the feeling of dreary routine. Because Chitre was so interested in the complex visual impact of poetry, the animation here is disappointingly literal, but the recitation captures the gentle despair of the closing lines when the son, years too late, shares his father’s dreams.
