Summary of R. Parthasarathy’s Exile from Homecoming

R. Parthasarathy is a famous Indian English poet.   He hails from the southern parts of India.  As the title, Exile from Homecoming, announces, R. Parthasarathy comes home after spending sometime abroad, but he is not able to fit himself in the current scenario culturally, linguistically, sociologically and psychologically.  The poem builds on the idea of the poet feeling exile and isolated, in spite of familiar things that surround him.

            The persona opens the poem by sharing his linguistic instability or inability.  He accepts that his tongue is been tied by English and he is not fluent with Tamil, as he was abroad.  He expects people to speak good Tamil, as been used in good old Tamil literature and scriptures.  His expectations are in vain and his hopes vanish, when he hears people use Tamil that is articulated by the characters in celluloid world or cinema.

            The persona moves on to brief his attempts to establish relation with his relatives.  The family members gather at a Tiruchchenur for family function, which happens after 1959, when his grandfather died.  They come in crowded buses loaded with dust of many years of memory.  The relatives gather in groups and sit without much formality.  They ear the packed food they have brought for lunch.  He looks at Sundari, probably his relative, who had once climbed up and down a tamarind tree with the poet.  She is married and has three daughters clinging to her like three planets.  The poet cannot relate himself with his relatives and with the circumstances.  He stays aloof and he claims expertise when it comes to farewell.  He feels guilty of losing his familiar tradition.  He regrets for throwing stones from a glass house built by his father.  He has evaded from his father’s footprints and he hopes that his son will not follow him in the future.

            The poet walks near river Vaigai that flows in Madurai, his hometown.  He is not satisfied with the sight it offers him.  He calls it as river once and not as a river.  The river is barren and empty without water.  Boys get into the river to play with paper boats.  Buffaloes also loiter in the river and they diminish it into a pond.  It is filled with hair and stale flowers.  Though the banks of the river are full of temples and other sacred things, the happenings inside the river are mean and degrading.  No emperor or poet can talk or boast of river Vaigai.  Not even birds like kingfisher and egrets come to river Vaigai. 

            The poet walks home.  The roads are dusty, which fills his eyes.  The streets are jammed with traffic.  His thoughtful walk is answered by the barking dogs.  He goes home and climbs up the stairs carefully only to be tripped off over the mat.

            The poet persona becomes fed up with things around the world.  He considers himself as a poet and a creator.  All he could do is defined a poet.  He looks himself as a poet and comes out defining him.  A poet is someone who becomes fat (fills his brain) by reading many old poems and poets.  He also reads more commentaries.  He is been invited to conferences and sometimes to schools and colleges to teach.  The poet is against himself being a poet and abuses himself of being one.

            The poet persona is finally willing to retire from life, yet he is not content with life.  He establishes himself as a freelancer.  He prays to god that a few of his articles should be published in newspapers and his prayers are sometimes answered.  He concludes the poem with a compelling thought of contentment that he should go through his life with “small change of uncertainities.”