Madam, - Rahul Bedi in his feature on Mother Teresa (October 18th) portrays Calcutta as a wretched wailing city that depended on every sustenance on the deceased nun. That is not the case.
Madam, - Rahul Bedi in his feature on Mother Teresa (October 18th) portrays Calcutta as a wretched wailing city that depended on every sustenance on the deceased nun. That is not the case.
She has her supporters (mainly amongst the affluent) but most of us are indifferent. There is neither a song nor a dance over her current honour in some distant city.
Bedi does not mention that on October 17th the local Rationalist Society marched on the police commissioner to demand the prosecution of Sister Nirmala under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (and other acts) for propagating superstition and magic.
The doctors who treated the tribal woman have made repeated statements that the "miracle" is a hoax. Bedi fails to report that. Bedi also forgets that we successfully blocked the renaming of Park Street after Teresa.
Bedi quotes Kipling - we Indians are past masters at running ourselves down. Kipling was a diehard racist who hated Indians (and the Irish). After the massacre at Amritsar in April, 1919, of 350 innocent people by General Dyer, he supported the butcher and contributed to his defence fund.
In any case he did not call Calcutta the "city of nightmares" - he was referring to a red-light district herein. The western media via the veneration for Mother Teresa have applied it to the whole city. And an Indian is conniving with the canard. - Yours, etc.,
BHAGBAT CHAKRABORTY, P A Shah Road, Calcutta, India