Maharashtra Board Class 12 English Chapter 2.5 Father Returning Home Textbook PDF Download

Ice Breakers

Discuss with your partner the difficulties that you face while commuting to and from the college by public transport.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

The similar problems are faced by the other commuters on the way to their work place. Imagine their plight and suggest three solutions.

Solutions

Giving them your place to sit

Complete the following table.

Write your duties towards the following

Teacher's Note

When we go to school or college, we travel by bus or train like your father does. Many people work hard to go to their jobs every day. We should respect and help them at home.

Exam Trick

Remember: Ice Breakers are activities to start the lesson. They help us think about our duties to parents and family. Your father works hard - so respect him and help at home!

Points to Remember

Public transport is crowded and tiring for people who travel every day.
We should help and respect our parents and elders in the family.
Our duty is to love, protect, and care for older people at home.
At school, we should listen to teachers and be kind to classmates.
Every family member has duties towards others in the family.

2.5 Father Returning Home

Dilip Chitre (1938 to 2009) was a celebrated bilingual poet and translator with a remarkable work in Marathi and English. His versatile creativity extends to painting, film-making and his notable contribution as a magazine columnist. He received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award, both for poetry as well as for his well-known translation work 'Says Tuka', popular abhangas (spiritual poems) by Sant Tukaram. He had started translation of literary work of saints in Marathi at the age of 16. Exile, alienation self-disintegration and death are observed to be 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 his dull, monotonous, exhausting and equally pitiable daily routine. It describes a forced alienation at home, which is reflected through the stale food and lack of sharing. His children refuse to share their joys and sorrows with the hardworking father who as a result is forced to retire into solitude. This very painful loneliness is a symbol of man's isolation from the materialistic man-made world.

Teacher's Note

Dilip Chitre was a great poet who wrote about common people like your father or grandfather. This poem shows how a tired father comes home from work and feels lonely because his children do not talk to him much.

Exam Trick

Remember: Dilip Chitre = writer of the poem. The main idea = father is tired and lonely. Think about your own father - how does he feel after coming home from work?

Points to Remember

The poet Dilip Chitre was from India and wrote in two languages - Marathi and English.
He won an important award called Sahitya Akademi Award for his writing.
This poem is about a father who travels on a train every day to work.
The father comes home tired and sad because his children do not talk to him.
The poem shows how modern life makes people feel lonely even at home.

Father Returning Home

My father travels on the late evening train

Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light

Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes

His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat

Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books

Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age

Fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.

Now I can see him getting off the train

Like a word dropped from a long sentence.

He hurries across the length of the grey platform,

Crosses the railway line, enters the lane,

His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward.

Home again, I see him drinking weak tea,

Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.

He goes into the toilet to contemplate

Man's estrangement from a man-made world.

Coming out he trembles at the sink,

The cold water running over his brown hands,

A few droplets cling to the greying hair on his wrists.

His sullen children have often refused to share

Jokes and secrets with him.

He will now go to sleep

Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming

Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking

Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.

-Dilip Chitre

Commuters: those who travel regularly from one place to another typically to work

Grey platform: It is grey due to cement. Here, 'grey' suggests old age, dullness, sordidness of a father's life.

Contemplate: think deeply

Estrangement: alienation

Sullen: bad tempered

Refusal of the children to share jokes and secrets indicates:

(1) They are angry

(2) Generation gap

(3) Lack of concern

Teacher's Note

This poem is about a real problem in many Indian families. The father works hard all day but when he comes home, his children ignore him. This is a sad but true story in modern life.

Exam Trick

Remember: Father = tired, lonely, sad. Children = do not talk to him. Key words = weak tea, stale chapati, silent, sullen = showing the father's sad life.

Points to Remember

The father is very tired after traveling on a crowded train every day.
His clothes are wet and dirty from rain and mud.
At home, he gets only weak tea and old stale chapati to eat.
His children do not talk to him or share their happiness with him.
The father feels alone and thinks about past and future instead of enjoying his family.

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