In the Chhandogya Upanishad, a story is told about how a boy named Satyakama obtained the supreme knowledge of the Brahman. When he was a young boy, he said to his mother, ‘I want to study the Vedas. For this, I will need a guru, but they will all ask the name of my father and my caste. So please tell me.’ The mother was not married, and in the society of that time, the son of an unmarried woman was considered an outcaste. She said, ‘My child, I do not know who your father is. We two have only each other. My name is Jabala. Similar to how a son’s name is derived from his father’s, your name should be Satyakama Jabala.’ The little boy went to Sage Gautama and asked to be taken as a student. The sage asked him about his father and his caste. The boy repeated what his mother had told him. Sage Gautama said, ‘One who could speak such a damaging truth about himself is, no doubt, a brahmin. You have not deviated from truth. I will teach you.’
Cut to the year 1969. A film is released by the famous Bollywood director Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Titled Satyakam, it tells the story of an idealistic engineer named Satyapriya Acharya, who rigidly holds on to his principle of absolute honesty and refuses to make any compromises. Repeatedly clashing with the rampant corruption prevalent at that time, he is unable to hold any job for a long time. He keeps suffering, and with him suffer his wife and a young son, whose parentage is uncertain.
After a long struggle for his principles, Satyapriya becomes incurably ill. On his deathbed, he is approached by a contractor who offers to provide money that could take care of his wife and son after his death, in return for his signature approving a badly executed project. For the first time in his life, Satyapriya compromises and signs the papers. His wife, who had suffered a lot due to Satyapriya’s ideals, tears up the papers. Satyapriya dies happy in the knowledge that he was able to convert at least one person to his ideals. The film pays homage to Satyakama Jabala in its closing sequences, where Satyapriya’s grandfather announces his intention to perform his last rites, and, just like Satyakama Jabala, Satyapriya’s young son reveals publicly that the reason was the son’s uncertain parentage. The grandfather is impressed with the boy’s innocence and his mother’s truthfulness. He regrets that he himself was unable to acknowledge the embarrassing truth publicly, despite having read the scriptures and followed spirituality for years. He drops his prejudice towards the boy and his mother, and proudly names the boy Satyakama.