31 pages • 1 hour read
Anita DesaiA Devoted Son
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Devotion
No one embodies this trait more than Rakesh. While devotion in a son may seem typical, there’s a sense that Rakesh’s devotion to his family, in particular his father, is out of the norm. Varma tells his friends that his son bent down and touched his feet after sharing the news about his high grades. The narrator says, “‘One does not often see such behavior in sons any more,’ they all agreed, a little enviously perhaps” (Paragraph 5). Their envy may come from the desire for their sons to display this type of behavior, which they apparently do not.
The act of bending down and touching a person’s feet is a sign of respect, and traditionally, a younger person would perform this act toward an elder. According to Richard Jain, “Indians believe that when a person bows down and touches the feet of their elders, their ego gets suppressed as this gesture indicates respecting the age, experience, achievements and wisdom of the person whose feet are being touched” (Jain, Richa. “Why Do Indians Touch the Feet of Their Elders?” Culture Trip, 25 Feb. 2018). According to tradition, after the younger person touches the elder’s feet, the elder then blesses them.
The reaction of the neighbors in the story makes it seem that people aren’t engaging in this practice anymore. After Varma mentions the event to neighbors, the narrator describes their reaction.
This moved many of the women in the crowd so much that they were seen to raise the ends of their saris and dab at their tears while the men reached out for the betel-leaves and sweetmeats that were offered around on trays and shook their heads in wonder and approval of such exemplary filial behavior (Paragraph 5).
The act shows how devoted Rakesh is to his father, but it also shows that he is devoted to the traditions of his culture.
In addition, he allowed his mother to arrange a marriage for him. The neighbors had been sure that he would get married while abroad and return with a “foreign wife,” but he didn’t.
Instead he agreed, almost without argument, to marry a girl she had picked out for him in her own village, the daughter of a childhood friend, a plump and uneducated girl, it was true, but so old-fashioned, so placid, so complaisant that she slipped into the household and settled in like a charm, seemingly too lazy and too good-natured to even try and make Rakesh leave home and set up independently, as any other girl might have done (Paragraph 7).
Rakesh’s devotion knows no bounds. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to show his respect and love for his family. He also shows how devoted he is to his heritage and his culture, which makes him an anomaly among his people (but one that is envied and admired).
Inevitability of Change
This theme is seen in two different ways. It can be seen in the progression of time with the characters getting older, and it is also seen in how the characters change in their interactions with members of their community and what they do to get attention.
It’s impossible to stop the progression of time, but no one in the story is trying to. Varma wants Rakesh to get older so that he can continue to bring glory to the family. The issue arises when Varma realizes that the neighbors no longer notice the great deeds his son has accomplished: “It was a strange fact, however, that talent and skill, if displayed for too long, cease to dazzle. It came to pass that the most admiring of all eyes eventually faded and no longer blinked at his glory” (Paragraph 11). It’s not that Rakesh is any less impressive; it’s that people have become accustomed to him. He’s no longer progressing but rather maintaining the excellence he achieved, so there’s no reason for others to pay attention.
When others stop recognizing and praising Rakesh, Varma progresses into another stage of life. He has become an old man: “Having retired from work and having lost his wife, the old father very quickly went to pieces, as they say” (Paragraph 11). People aren’t paying attention to him like they used to, so he looks for ways to become the center of attention.
The ways that Varma attempts to be noticed aren’t positive behaviors. Some are disgusting and rude, such as his habit of spitting on others. There’s also his habit of pretending to be dead. When family and friends start mourning, he springs up and lets them know that he’s alive.
He did this once too often: there had been a big party in the house, a birthday party for the youngest son, and the celebrations had to be suddenly hushed, covered up and hustled out of the way when the daughter-in-law discovered, or thought she discovered, that the old man, stretched out from end to end of his string bed, had lost his pulse; the party broke up, dissolved, even turned into a band of mourners, when the old man sat up and the distraught daughter-in-law received a gob of red spittle right on the hem of her organza sari (Paragraph 12).
People started to ignore Varma again. They didn’t care if he was lying flat on his back or sitting up in bed, so Varma had to find other ways to get people to notice him.
Varma continues his downward progression until he’s acting like a petulant child. By the end of the story, Varma has progressed so far into petulance that it’s hard to believe he’s a man who’s lived a long life and seen his son accomplish great things. Rakesh may no longer be moving up in the world of medicine, but he’s progressed from being a poor man’s son into someone impressive who does what he can to give back to his family and community.
The Battle Between Tradition and Modernity
One of the traditions of this society is touching an elder’s feet. Having respect for one’s elders shows how important they are and allows for the passage of knowledge from one generation to another. But throughout the story, traditions are often ignored or replaced by more modern sensibilities.
Both Varma and Rakesh hold onto tradition, but they can’t stop the passage of time, and modernity overtakes them. This is most evident in the education Rakesh receives in medicine. He may embrace tradition in his thoughts and actions, but he also must be willing to move forward with the times and learn new things. Rakesh takes what he has learned and literally shoves it down his father’s throat, and it’s not something that Varma accepts readily.
Varma wants to hang on to the old ways, mainly being able to eat what he wants. The narrator says, “He cried easily, shriveling up on his bed, but if he complained of a pain or even a vague, gray fear in the night, Rakesh would simply open another bottle of pills and force him to take one. ‘I have my duty to you papa,’ he said when his father begged to be let off” (Paragraph 29). In his mind, Rakesh is only doing what’s necessary to keep his father alive. He wants to show his love and respect, but Varma does not appreciate his actions.
Rakesh also embodies how times have changed through his possessions. After spending years working at the hospital, Rakesh opens his own clinic. Not only is having a clinic a sign of his success, but he drives his family there in a new car.
He took his parents in his car—a new, sky-blue Ambassador with a rear window full of stickers and charms revolving on strings—to see the clinic when it was built, and the large sign-board over the door on which his name was printed in letters of red, with a row of degrees and qualifications to follow it like so many little black slaves of the regent (Paragraph 8).
There is no mention of what the family used before to get around, but it seems that the car was a modern feature that the family was only able to acquire because of Rakesh’s ability to embrace change and modernity.
Varma doesn’t embrace change the way his son does; he fights modernity. This becomes apparent when he does what he can to become the center of attention once again. Playing dead is only part of his plan. He also complains about the things that are going on.
There was only one pleasure left in the old man now (his son’s early morning visits and readings from the newspaper could no longer be called that) and those were visits from elderly neighbors. These were not frequent as his contemporaries were mostly as decrepit and helpless as he and few could walk the length of the road to visit him any more (Paragraph 18).
Old Bhatia a like Varma when it comes to tradition. However, Bhatia takes things further because he refuses to bathe indoors, preferring to use the garden tap to get clean.
The conversations between the old men focus on how Varma is not allowed to eat the foods he once enjoyed. He complains that after getting his son a great education and helping him become a doctor, he’s treated poorly—he doesn’t get to indulge in traditional foods. He may live longer by not eating those items, but it affects his mood and mental health.
Varma has become a relic of the past, one that is expected to get out of the way so that future generations and modernity can take over. His son’s name has replaced his on the fence.
So there he sat, like some stiff corpse, terrified, gazing out on the lawn where his grandsons played cricket, in danger of getting one of their hard-spun balls in his eye, and at the gate that opened onto the dusty and rubbish-heaped lane but still bore, proudly, a newly touched-up signboard that bore his son’s name and qualifications, his own name having vanished from the gate long ago (Paragraph 39).
There may be a desire to hold onto tradition, but it’s impossible to stop the passage of time and the influence of modernity. Rakesh upholds the teachings of his family and culture, but he can’t hang on to them indefinitely, especially if he wants to succeed in his career and life.
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