Unit 2.5 Father Returning Home Dilip Chitre 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 chapatti, 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 wi