In plain words
Halfway along the road the father fell into hardships and, without food, left his body. The mother, taking that eight-year-old son with her, entered Bhārata. In Calcutta, each day, going to a few houses for alms, feeding her son, eating only what was left herself and, if nothing was left, going hungry and living on water: so it went on. Because things were like this, the alms she got grew less day by day. Because the mother fed only this son and went hungry herself, an illness came upon her that would not leave. Then such a weakness came upon the mother that she was unable even to rise and walk. Then the eight-year-old boy went to his mother. He held her feet. ‘Mother! You need not go for alms. I will bring alms and feed you. Give me leave,’ he begged. In Bhārata, no mother, whoever she is, has the heart to send her son out for alms. That is the very heart of a mother. A mother cannot bear to see her son begging. But in a plight with no way out, such a mother had no choice but to send him for alms. This boy would go, feed his mother, eat nothing himself, tell his mother the lie that he had eaten, and so content her; in this way he went on living his daily life. Because things went on in this way, the son's health too declined day by day. But one day he went for alms to a senior officer's house. The officer was reading the paper on an easy chair in the veranda. ‘Bhavati bhikṣāṃdehi,’ he said. Even his voice was hardly coming out. In a very weak voice he asked for alms. All right. The officer said, ‘Little one! You are weak; I will bring food on a leaf and serve you. Sit right here and eat,’ he said, and went inside, and even before he could bring back the food on a leaf, this boy collapsed. At once he was saying something with his lips. Wondering what it was, the officer put his ear close to his mouth and listened, and the boy was saying, ‘Even if my life goes, it does not matter. Send this food to Mother. Send it to Mother,’ he said, and gave up his life. See! In Bhāratabhūmi, who is the divine Mother, a mother's Prema had entered the very blood of the Bhāratīyas, and so every individual lived out that devotion to the mother in that way; yet in that Bhārata of old, things have today taken a distorted path, into a state where you cannot say what Prema there is between mother and child.