The Electric New Paper :
THEY COME FROM AROUND THE WORLD
TO HELP OTHERS
... AND I WAS ONE OF THEM
10 YEARS AFTER HER DEATH, MOTHER TERESA'S CHARITIES HAVE
GROWN
MOTHER TERESA'S LEGACY: HELPING OTHERS
EVERY morning, just as the nuns' soulful singing reaches its
crescendo, the first dreadlocked, turban-clad volunteer taps softly
on the convent's doors.
By Ng Tze Yong
10 September 2007
EVERY morning, just as the nuns' soulful singing reaches its
crescendo, the first dreadlocked, turban-clad volunteer taps softly
on the convent's doors.
The singing comes from Mother House, headquarters of the
Missionaries Of Charity, the religious order established by Mother
Teresa in 1950.
On Kolkata's hell-rider buses, on rickshaws, on yellow Ambassador
taxis, the volunteers arrive in worn-out sandals and slacks.
Before long, the convent starts to resemble a backpacker hostel.
The hymns are replaced by the excited chatter of the young (and
young-at-heart) out to make a difference.
There's 35-year-old Gabriele Giuliani, who divides every year
equally between volunteering in Kolkata and driving a cab in his
native Rome.
There's the middle-aged Japanese salaryman who never speaks a word,
who quit and came here as part of a worldwide volunteering
odyssey.
And then there are tourists like 30-year-old Huang Chao Yu, a
nanotechnology PhD student from Taiwan, for whom volunteering is
part of experiencing 'the real Kolkata'.
I sit on a wooden bench, nibbling on the breakfast of plain bread
the sisters provide for volunteers.
Kolkata's poor are already ingrained in my mind. I feel too guilty
to go for seconds.
Ten years after her death, Mother Teresa's legacy continues to
enthrall Kolkata and the world. Last month, an amazing 400-odd
pairs of helping hands arrived from all over.
A sister in blue-white robes gives advice to a wide-eyed blonde in
a saffron bandana - from the spiritual (of 'seeing Jesus in every
patient's face') to the practical (of how to take the destitute to
the toilet).
But it's a controversial legacy the volunteers follow. Time
magazine recently featured the secret letters of Mother Teresa,
which showed how she doubted the existence of God for the last 50
years of her life.
It set off an intense debate: Mother Teresa is, after all, only one
step away from sainthood.
But in the city that really knew her, it's her child-like innocence
that resonates.
For everyone, from nuns to street vendors, she's simply
'Mother'.
It's the same innocence which has brought volunteers here.
They come from Spain, Italy, France - countries with proud Catholic
traditions. Many others - up to half on some days - come from
Japan, Taiwan and Korea.
NOT ALL ARE RELIGIOUS
Some are pilgrims. But many aren't even religious.
'My friends asked why I had to come all the way here to help
people,' said Mr Huang, who's an atheist.
'I don't know. I don't even know much about Mother Teresa. But I
guess I just want to help.'
It's a Babel that works.
Volunteers dive into the chores - laundry, dishes, medical care -
with quiet stoicism.
'This is not a place for socialising,' we're reminded by the
sisters on our first day. 'Work in the silence of God.'
I stamp on bundles of clothes smelling faintly of urine with my
feet. Another job is to tend to a patient in the toilet. Others are
baking four floors up on the zinc rooftop, spreading laundry.
Screams punctuate the silence, when a sister unwraps the bandage on
a patient with an amputated foot.
A burly volunteer bear hugs the patient from behind, holding him
still while muttering encouragement into his ear.
Another volunteer returns with a stretcher; someone had died in the
night.
No one knows where his family is. But later, this man's body will
be tended to, washed and prayed over. Not abandoned on Kolkata's
ghastly streets.
Dignity before death - one of the sisters' goals. This - not
letters, songs and candlelight dinners - is what Mother Teresa
meant by 'love'.
A loose volunteer community inhabits the alleyways of Sudder
Street, Kolkata's backpacker strip filled with hotels with rip-off
names like Shilton and Hilson.
In rooms that go upwards from $3, complete with bed bugs and
peeling paint, the volunteers stay, anywhere from days to
months.
'It's amazing. You think, they are so close to the Taj Mahal, the
Himalayas, and yet they come to Kolkata,' said Canadian Heidi
Hagenlocher.
To cater to them, and the hordes of tourists, the divine is
repackaged in kitsch.
In a tourist shop, hideously-made figurines of Mother Teresa,
covered in cling wrap, go for 30 rupees (about $1) each.
Sales have risen steadily since Mother Teresa's death, said store
owner S N Islam.
'Italians buy Mother Teresa candles, Indians buy Mother Teresa
pendants,' he said. But kitsch need not mean irreverence.
'Don't,' muttered Mr Islam when a customer tried to place his water
bottle on the cover of a Mother Teresa book.
And what do the sisters think?
'Tourism may be good. God can work even through a Mother Teresa
T-shirt,' said Sister Christie. 'But don't commercialise Mother.
Her message was spiritual, never commercial.'
In an age where glitzy fund-raising is routine, the Missionaries Of
Charity never engages in fund-raising.
Its belief: We serve, God provides.
And God has, it seems.
In the decade since Mother Teresa's death, the number of its homes
worldwide has grown about 25 per cent, from 594 to 757.
More than 4,800 nuns are working in 133 countries. In Singapore,
the Missionaries Of Charity operate a home for the elderly at
Marymount Centre, Thomson Road.
The homes may be increasing, but the number of novices, or aspiring
nuns, has fallen by almost half in the past decade, from 441 to
265.
Sister Christie sees that as 'part of a worldwide trend of smaller
nuclear families and greater possibilities for the young'.
Indeed, the winds of change are seeping in under the convent
door.
The sisters never used to work with computers. Now, you hear the
tentative strokes of fingers on keyboards from the accounting and
postulation offices, which works for the canonisation of Mother
Teresa.
'They can no longer do their work without the help of computers,'
said Sister Christie. 'But we don't want to rely too much on
technology. We want to rely on God.'
It's this dogged reliance on the invisible, in the face of the
shocking reality that is Kolkata's poor, that doesn't make sense to
outsiders.
Critics accused Mother Teresa of being more interested in saving
souls than saving lives. They point to the crude health care
provided in homes for the dying, where the mantra is: It's not how
much you do but how much love you put into what you do.
The world can talk behind the almost-saint's back. But Mr Bapi
Chakraborty will tell you differently.
The 52-year-old is a Brahmin, or Hindu priest, of the Kali Temple
in Kolkata. It was his temple that donated the premises for Mother
Teresa's first home back in 1952.
'Even today, we put flowers at the foot of (goddess) Kali's statue
to ask for the protection of Mother's soul,' said Mr
Chakraborty.
Today, the 'poorest of the poor' still dwell on Kolkata's
soot-caked streets.
The pragmatic will ask: What about micro-financing? What about Bill
Gates-style philanthropy?
Many can't reconcile Mother Teresa with the timeless adage: Why
give fish when you can teach them to fish?
But the sisters say: The ones we work for can't even hold a fishing
rod.
It's classic Mother Teresa - so profound to some, so vague to
others, that it's hard to find a rejoinder.
The outside world may crave for answers: Why, and how, did this
Albanian woman, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, do what she did?
But none's needed, in the city that truly knew her.
The volunteers will come, the nuns will chant, and the cash
registers will keep on ringing.
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