INDIA: Calcutta, where Mother Teresa gave dignity to the destitute, is quietly proud on the eve of her beatification. Rahul Bedi reports from West Bengal
Six years after her death and a day before her beatification in Rome tomorrow, Mother Teresa's spirit remains vibrant in Calcutta, the east Indian city where for decades she gave dignity to the dying, compassion to the poor and a home to abandoned and handicapped children.
Over half a century after founding her Missionaries of Charity order, Mother Teresa's legacy continues to blur religious lines in this mainly Hindu nation where communal tensions often explode into brutal bloodshed.
Also known as the Saint of the Gutters, her planned beatification by Pope John Paul II is a source of pride to many in Calcutta and its West Bengal state from the ruling Marxist Party to Muslims and Hindus.
She remains Mother to most Calcuttans, rich or poor, and Ma to the wretched and dispossessed in this predominantly poor city that developed a special link to the tiny woman who came here in 1929 at the age of 19 from her birthplace of Skopje, Macedonia.
She taught in a girl's school before starting the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 with just 12 nuns. Today the order has 4,500 nuns spread across 133 countries and its sisters running varied charitable organisations in their distinctive blue-bordered white rough cotton saris that remain a familiar and respected sight in Mother Teresa's adopted city of 15 million people.
At Calcutta's Nirmal Hridaya (Clean Heart) hospice for the dying, the first home Mother Teresa established next to the Kalighat temple in a poor orthodox Hindu area in the face of stiff opposition, the diminutive ethnic Albanian nun is revered as a Devi or goddess.
Hundreds of locals - irrespective of their religion - daily visit Mother Teresa's simple white marble-topped tomb in the forecourt of Mother House, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity in order to invoke her blessings.
"It does not matter that she was Christian and I am Hindu," said Rajan Kumar Gupta, a devout Hindu cigarette seller who daily prays to Shiva the God of destruction and regeneration and sports a red mark on his forehead as an open display of his piety. "I will have no trouble praying to her if she one day becomes a saint," he said.
Parents regularly place their newborn babies on Mother Teresa's tomb asking her to give their offspring a long and trouble-free life. The unadorned box placed on top of the tomb was crammed full yesterday with "special requests to Mother", the majority from youngsters many of whom were infants when she died at the age of 87 in September 1997.
Many such supplicants are convinced that Mother Teresa still has the power to reach out from her grave and alleviate their suffering or grant their wish.
"Mother Teresa is truly the mother of the poor and this city," said Ms Sohinder Grewal, a Sikh who has worked closely with the Missionaries of Charity for over two decades. Her maxim of giving till it hurt still seems very much alive not only in the city but in all the various charitable institutions she initiated across India and the world. Mother Teresa was truly a saint whose appeal transcends all religious boundaries, Ms Grewal added.
After her beatification, Mother Teresa, reportedly a favourite of Pope John Paul, would be canonised at a future date and known thereafter as St Teresa.
Meanwhile, at the hospice where in a large room terminally ill men are lying on beds placed side by side, the atmosphere is grimly depressing. Some, nearing their end hardly move, pleased to be in a place where they can die with respect.
"The inmates here have been brought in off the streets," said Shayak (19), a volunteer from Calcutta's St Xavier's college. "We provide them with a clean bed and medication in an attempt to give them a dignified end." Like Mother Teresa, the religion of the ill was of no consequence, he said.
"I was on the street and thought I was going to die like an animal. Now I know that I'll die like a human being in the care of Mother Teresa," one of the dying told Sister Teresina.
The sisters, however, in keeping with Mother Teresa's instructions, try and give all those who die here the last rites in their own religion. Mother Teresa's critics accused her of converting people on their deathbeds to "garner souls for Christianity". It was a claim Mother Teresa thought below her dignity to challenge or even acknowledge.
Even the communists who have ruled West Bengal state, of which Calcutta is the capital, for 26 years and who maintained a certain distance from Mother Teresa, have a soft spot for her. They bent the rules so she could be buried at the orders's headquarters instead of in a cemetery.
"She was a great representative for humanity," the state Minorities Development and Welfare Minister, Mr Mohammad Salim, said. "She worked with the poor and the marginalised. As communists, we empathise with that and respect her for it," he added.
Calcutta is a city which rouses strong passions. Rudyard Kipling called it the "the city of dreadful night", while a former prime minister called it a "dying" metropolis. Mother Teresa though never felt negatively about it.
"Unlike many others, she never judged Calcutta despite seeing its worst side," Dr Shila Verma, a dedicated Hindu who prays daily to several deities, said. "All she did was help the downtrodden and give them dignity. Calcutta will be happy when she formally becomes a saint as most of us think she already is one."