A Devoted Son Summary

A Devoted Son

Characters:

Rakesh:
- Varma’s son
- A loving, caring, responsible and dutiful son
- A brilliant student, who becomes successful to be a doctor and gets an opportunity to do his practice and education in the USA.

Varma:
- Rakesh’s father
- He works as an oil seller at a depo.
- He is proud of his son’s progress.
- But after some time, he finds his son bully because he cuts his food stuffs.

Veena:
- Rakesh’s wife
- Loyal and dutiful

Bhatia:
- Rakesh’s old neighbour
- He involves in Rakesh’s family conversation and activities.

Varma's wife:
- An unnamed lady
- She dies later, and her death makes Varma unhappy and sick.

Rakesh's children:
- Unnamed children
- They spend their time playing with grandfather.

Summary: 

The story ‘A Devoted Son’ written by a renowned Indian writer Anita Desai is a realistic story about a middle-class Indian family in an Indian village. The story shows that all parents have ambition for their children and they become happy and satisfied by seeing their children’s achievements. In addition, it teaches children to love, care and respect their parents for their sacrifice and dedication towards them.

Rakesh is born in an illiterate family in an Indian village. His father Varma is a kerosene seller. His father has a dream of seeing his son being educated. As his dream, his son becomes the first member of getting education in his family. Finally, he completes his medical course getting the highest marks. Then there is the celebration in his family for his achievement. In the celebration, many neighbours are invited, and Mr. Varma informs all that his son is going to America for his further study. All the neighbours respect him and wish for his successful career. Seeing his son’s popularity, he becomes proud of him.

To complete his degree, Rakesh spends some years in America. After completing his study, he gets jobs there in famous hospitals. Because of his performance, he receives many awards and sends them back to his home. Even being far away from his home, he is always in regular contact with his family. In America, Rakesh is praised by all for his working ability. Though he loves the country, he decides to return to his own country for his family and working in his homeland. But his parents are not happy with his decision. After returning from America, he marries an uneducated village girl. Due to his marriage, there creates conflict in his family. After some time, he starts working in a city hospital. In a very short time of his working, he becomes the director the hospital, and this success give joy to his family. But after some time, he leaves the job, starts his own clinic, buys a car and becomes the best and the richest doctor in his town.

Rakesh is a good nature man, devoted son, excellent doctor and responsible husband. So, he is living a very happy life with his family. But with the sudden death of his mother, his life becomes miserable. Due to her mother’s death, his father is heart-broken and becomes sick. But he does not want to lose his father like her mother. Being very worried about his father, he starts applying his medical expertise on his father. He bans giving sweets and oily food to his father. But his father always wants to eat them. He even tries to bribe his grandchildren to get them. So, that activity frustrates Rakesh, and there creates a kind of misunderstanding between the father and the son. His father even says that his son and his wife dislike him. But Rakesh keeps on caring his father with all care and affection. His father always refuses his tonic and does not want to survive on medicines. One day, when goes to his father after coming from his clinic, he gives him a new tonic to make him feel better. But the father wishes to die. He does not want take more medicine. At the same time, the bottle of the tonic suddenly falls down. Then he closes his eyes, points his chin at the ceiling and dies.