Question- Write a Critical appreciation of the poem 'Exile From Homecoming'.

Answer - 

In this poem, R. Parthasarathy reveals that the poet's infatuation with the English language and culture is understrain. The move he sees alien English life the more he becomes conscious of his Tamil roots.

He dressed in his foreign clothes. England also had polluted lands filled. with smoke and litter. There were unbathed English children in a dirty setup. However people were only disgusted with the coloursheds. The poet described how the river divides the city from the night, indicating the nightlife there. And the noises reappear as the mechanical routine returns to the day with trains and milkmen foregrounding the scene. The events of the day assume vocal overtones with the newspaper boy.

The poet's tongue is hunchbacked due to words held back, and the burden of words left unsaid as he heads for Jadavpur to his beloved. She smelt of gin and cigarette ash. Her breasts are aroused and therefore sharp due to desire. The speaker makes sure that he carries this wisdom of the colonial past in the boneurn of his mind. His mind now carries the ashes of his own existence that he now.

Presumes to be bad. It also carries the remnants of a colonial past. Nevertheless, all that is left are the ashes of things that were once young and beautiful, of the flesh and glow and all that youth stood for. He comprehends that his life has come to a full circle, it either completes a cycle or has come to its beginning. He makes a resolution to give quality to the other half. He regrets that in the scramble to be a man in terms of sexual maturity and in the materialistic march for success, he has forgone his innocence.

The poem begins with the scene of a room in a London flat where young men sit together talking of their country (India) and its art. This young man had spent his youth idolising the Englishman as God. Since he was so captivated by them. The young men realize that the language flourishes in its own cultural backdrop and loses its vitality when imported it is like a tree transplanted into a new climate. The bark withers in the new climate and the branches lose their vitality. The only reassuring thought is that the past is there to be cherished. It is something concrete something real. In this new world, flaunting the dress and poise of the new folks, you are nothing but the coloured among the while "London city is no Jewel" as was believed by the Indian during the British rule like any other indian city with its squalor and poverty, London too has its share of smokes and litter and poverty stricken children.

In the ninth stanza, he hears an old man speaking a great truth, a truth which he himself had come to realize. It is that "you" cannot change people from what they are. They belong to the past and the new environment cannot change them except superficiality. The British Empire seems to be losing its glory. From Africa could be heard the voice of protest and stanzas eleven and twelve speak of the all of the British empires and in this context the river Thames appears as a retaining force. Just as the marital powers of Buadicea, Queen of lceni was defeated by the Romans, so too the progress of the British Empire comes to a grinding halt. Now sitting under the shads of the poplars, overlooking the Thames, watching London up to a new day, the young men realize that England has also lost touch with the past.

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