About the poet:
Dilip Purushottam Chitre (1938-2009) who was celebrated bilingual poet and translator with a remarkable work in Marathi and English language. He was also a painter, filmmaker and magazine columnist. he received the prestigious sahitya akademi award for his poetry as well as his well-known translation work 'Says Tuka' popular abhangas by Sant Tukaram.
About the Poem:
Present poem is taken from the 'Travelling in a Cage'.It is an autobiographical poem which describes the portrait of Suburban commuter who travels daily on daily basis from home to his workplace.it describes loneliness of a person who is a breadwinner of the family he was neglected ,uncared and not given any importance in his own family.
THEME :
It is an autobiographical poem.Poet expressed his feelings towards his father at and old age.it is an account of an old man who worked continuously for his family to complete their needs. But his family members did not share their joys and sorrows with this hard working person.No one is there to take care of him, to converse with him or to understand him.In short we can say that it is an account of any old man who does the hard work for his family but leads a tiresome ,lonely and dull life.
POETIC STYLE :
The poem consists of two stanzas of 12 lines each. It is written in free verse with no particular meter or rhyme scheme followed. The language is easy and simple but full of symbolic expressions and poetic devices like simile , alliteration, transferred epithet, onomatopoeia etc. It is in first person narrative poem where the poet-speaker narrates his father's life.Poet has used imagery and various descriptive words.
Paraphrase of the poem :
Ist Stanza:-
The poem opens with description of his father's return journey towards home from office by train. The father is travelling in a late evening train after finishing his work for the day like other thousands of other commuters. ‘Late evening train’ may indicate he has no personal method of transportation and hour of his journey is late.Father stands among commuters in yellow light of a local compartment. Silent commuters means no will,energy to carry conversations. Yellow light indicates tiredness of father.Father is not interested to watch the views outside the train again and again.(unseeing eyes).
The poet tells about the pathetic condition of his father ,as he travels during rainy season.His clothes become damp and dirty.His black raincoat becomes stained with mud and eyesight has become poor.The bag he was carrying was stuffed with books and he was struggling to handle it.The poet’s father gets down from the train. Here Dilip Chitre has used simile in comparing his father to a word in a long sentence.He says that his father gets down just "like a word dropped from a long sentence".The father crosses the railway line and runs towards his house,through muddy lanes.His chappals become sticky with mud.
IInd Stanza:-
Second stanza describes the isolation state of his father in his own home.The poet tell us that his father drinks 'weak tea' and eats 'stale chapati' .This creates an unpleasant atmosphere.Nobody cares for him even at home. He goes into the toilet to think deeply and to seperate himself from mam made world.Toilet is a symbol of his small world.He is terribly shaken when he comes outvof the toilet and trembles (shakes) while washing his hands at the basin. Shaking and trembling of his body indicates his old age and his over thinking about his loneliness. Grey hairs stand for the old age. His children do not interact with him. They do not share their happiness and sorrows with him. Father listens to the radio.Then he goes to sleep.In his sleep,he dreams about his ancestores ( grandparents ,great grandparents & so on )and grandchildren. He thinks about nomads( tribes)entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass. This indicates how society has changed since the ancient times.
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