Column

Today India will release a commemorative coin and the US, a commemorative postal stamp to celebrate the centenary of the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. The Vatican is working on her sainthood.

Millions across the world had hailed her as a ‘living saint’ decades ago. And no doubt sundry Indians will now rise in righteous indignation claiming that such steps to honour a canonised missionary need to be balanced by similarly honouring some Hindu saintly figures.

As in life, in death too Mother Teresa is
difficult to slot — being too worldly wise for a missionary, and too dedicated to Jesus for a
social worker. She followed her heart with a freedom that the handmaidens of the Lord don’t normally have, even accepting donations from some of the most sinister souls in the name of the poor and hungry.

The work she began from a couple of rented rooms in Calcutta 60 years ago soon spread across the world as the Missionaries of Charity started shelters, orphanages, hospices and homes for the old, the sick and the handicapped simultaneously in countries as politically different as Russia, the United States and Cuba. At the time of her death, the Nobel Peace Laureate was running more than 600 homes in 123 countries.

Through all this we heard the sporadic baying of naysayers. She was accused of being selfish, unethical, duplicitous, of harming the interests of women, of glamorising poverty, of making a virtue of wretchedness and even being unhygienic in her healthcare.

These are triggered by the same qualities that led to her unparalleled success: her steely
determination to work within the limits of the possible, her dedication to a higher truth, her conviction that love could make a difference.

She didn’t care about politics or political correctness. As she said, “We have been created for greater things — to love and to be loved.”

I had the privilege of knowing her a bit over the years in Calcutta — first as a hero-worshipping child, then as a cynical journalist.

In spite of her legendary kindness and simplicity, she was surprisingly strict, and an exceptionally intelligent human being, who was guided as much by her faith as by secular realities.

I remember the firmness with which she prevented me from being a volunteer at their home for the dying.

I was 13, too young to encounter death at close quarters, she insisted. “If you really want to help the old and sick bring me medicines for them,” she said by way of a compromise. “Collect medicines that are not needed at home, even a month past their expiry date is okay. They may be less effective, but they are better than nothing.”

To me, that was Mother Teresa. She did not seek perfection, but did the best she could — and encouraged you to do the same. And she would protect the vulnerable.

Having a Mother Teresa coin is fine, but she belongs not in our pockets, but in our conscience. And every time we encounter violence, especially in the name of religion, we should remember her words: “How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbour whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?”