AUTHOR OR THE CHARACTER? DILIP CHITRE AND MUMBAI

Dilip Chitre, a well-known Indian bilingual poet, lived the prime years of his life in
the city of Mumbai. As a young poet, he was deeply influenced by the haunting sociocultural
milieu of this city. Naturally, the throbbing metropolis became a recurring
background of many of his poems. With the passage of time the stature of the city increased
thereby taking in its fold not only Dilip Chitre’s poetry but also his personal life. It became
a living character in his poems which kept on moving, speaking, laughing, dancing,
changing and even sometimes censuring itself. It seems to be a character full of flesh and
blood moving as per its desire all over the poetic canvas of Dilip Chitre.
That is why this paper studies the life and poetry of Dilip Chitre with reference to
the presence of the city of Mumbai in them with an intention to find out how Chitre has
handled this unavoidable character of the city in his poems and also the extent to which it
has influenced the personal as well as the poetic life of Dilip Chitre.