FATHER RETURNING HOME

MY father travels on the late evening trains Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat standing 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 driplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists. His sullen children have often refused to share jokes and secrets with him. He will now go to sleep Lisrening to the static on the radio, dreaming of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking Of nomads entering Subcotinent through a narrow pass.MY father travels on the late evening trains Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat standing 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 driplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists. His sullen children have often refused to share jokes and secrets with him. He will now go to sleep Lisrening to the static on the radio, dreaming of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking Of nomads entering Subcotinent through a narrow pass.