In plain words
Seeing that she alone went on ruling, however long it was, the son grew weary, and one day, in a public assembly, when his mother Queen Victoria was seated, he went up close to her: ‘Mother! How long before you die? It is only after you die that I am to be king, isn't it?’ he asked, they say. At once Queen Victoria had her son put in prison, they say. That very son was the 8th George, the emperor. He ruled only for a short time. Through such a craving for wealth, a man changes even his Prema for his mother, son though he is. In an Upaniṣad, taking note of the changes in character that come to the rich, they told a story as well. A mother has an only son. That mother has a great deal of wealth. He had lost his father in his childhood itself. Because this wealth was there, this son, growing and growing, fell prey to evil habits and bad company and, at the very last, sinking like a madman to deeds that should never be done, went on shaping his life into an unholy life. The world too is in just that state today. As the saying goes, “When the tank fills to the brim, ten thousand frogs gather.” Once water comes into the tank, these frogs come and gather, so many of them. When there is no water, these frogs do not tell you where they are going before they leave. In the same way, as long as there is wealth, many friends gather. If the wealth somehow dwindles, the friends go off, each his own way, without a word. In that way bad company gathered round this rich man's son. Little by little this went beyond all bounds. Many in Bhārata are going along in just this way, in a manner in which they cannot understand their own lives. Well then, every day he came to his mother and kept asking for this much money and that much money. Little by little, because the son harassed his mother in this way, her Prema for her son dwindled and hatred got the upper hand. Brooding deep within, the mother came to such a feeling of hatred, beyond all bounds, that even her feeling for him as her son perished in her. One day she made a plan: ‘Rather than have a son like this, who ruins his parents' name, better that he be gone.’ But at that very time the son too made another plan.