True Devotion

A twelve-year-old boy approached the District Judge of Chittoor. He was the son of a farmer who was sentenced to prison for not paying the goods on time.

The farmer had taken some government land, but there was no crop that year and according to the then law he had to go to jail.

Here, the father was in jail, that the time for the boy's grandfather's annual shraadh had arrived.  The boy's mother started crying, because how would Shradh be performed without her husband?

Seeing the mother's suffering and the father's need, the child came to the district judge. The judge said after listening to the boy's entire talk, "I cannot let your father go without bail." The boy said with disappointment and sorrow, "I have no money to bail my father, but you leave him for some time, I will be in jail instead of him."

Hearing the boy's heart melted the judge. The boy signed his father's discharge papers and the judge then released his father.

Both father and son reached home the same night. Shradh-kriya was performed at the appropriate time. This promising boy later came to be known as Ranganath Shastri, a scholar who achieved mastery in fifteen languages.

This passage suggests that we should serve our father with true devotion, service and a spirit of sacrifice.