In plain words
He thought he would catch the king. “Rather than chase a lame fox and strike it, it is better to strike at a tiger, even if you miss,” he thought. Rather than begging from all the small people, he thought it much better to catch hold of the Mahārāja, who is like a tiger. He went to the Mahārāja. That Mahārāja was no ordinary man. He had lived the Bhagavad Gītā fully, studied it, learned it by heart. To some extent he had brought it into his own experience. As the saying goes, a full pot does not splash, so that Mahārāja never spoke to anyone anywhere about the Bhagavad Gītā. Even his ministers did not know that the Mahārāja knew the Bhagavad Gītā. In such a situation this pandit, wrapped in a shawl, went into the darbār hall. The minister came and brought word that a pandit was waiting for him. The king first sent only his minister. “Find out what the matter is and why he has come, and come back,” he said. “I have come to recite the Bhagavad Gītā,” said the pandit. My whole life I have carried on only by spreading and teaching the Bhagavad Gītā. Our whole family depends on this alone. There is no other job and no other income. By spreading the Bhagavad Gītā, and with the money that comes from it, I pass my life with ease, comfort and joy.
The king sent word through the minister. That pandit has not yet fully come to know the Bhagavad Gītā. “Tell him to come once he has come to know it,” he said. He thought it over, then. For ten, fifteen years I have been teaching the Bhagavad Gītā, and the Mahārāja says I do not know it! This Mahārāja knows nothing, he thought. Then, after some ten days, the pandit went again. The king gave the same answer again. “He has not yet come to know it fully; let him come when he knows it,” he said. In this way he sent him back four or five times. The pandit grew very angry. He was filled with great despair. He fell into dejection. Meanwhile he grew sick of it all. He went home. He flung that book down there. He lay down in deep despair. His wife came. “What is it, dear! What did the Mahārāja say? Why such despair?” she kept asking, question after question. In that anger he shouted at her too a little. She pressed him all the more. “What did the Mahārāja say?” she kept asking. “My mind is in no state to tell you. Shut up!” he said. She understood her husband's state. She went inside. She made a little upma. She fetched some coffee. She put them on a plate and came. How to calm men when they are angry, only women know; others do not know, poor things. She went up to him. He got up. He drank the coffee. He calmed down a little. Then she sat down, took a palm-leaf fan and, fanning him, asked, “What did the Mahārāja say, dear?”