Kolkata: Days before her canonization into sainthood, the City of Joy celebrates the revered ‘Saint of the Gutters’, as she was fondly called. As the world celebrates Mother Teresa’s 106th birth anniversary on Friday, Kolkata basks in the warmth of her human traits.
Painter Nemai Sengupta met the Mother 45 years ago in a flooded suburb of Kolkata, and shadowed her till the day she died. He painted over a 1,000 pieces, including one which bears her handwritten blessing.
“My relationship with the Mother was like that of a son. It was a natural relationship. I used to look for her indulgence like a mother, and she showered love on me like I was her son,” he says.
In St. Xavier’s College, Principal Father Felix Raj’s association with the Mother began in 1989, when he was ordained a priest. The Mother wanted to touch his feet and seek his blessings because she saw Jesus in every priest, recalls Father Raj.
“There were two sides to her life. One was that of generous service to the poorest of the poor, because of her love and faith in God. The other, was her doubt — what we call the darkness of the soul. Every human being has these doubts: is God there? What does God do when people suffer, when they die? She overcame her doubts at the same time,” he says.
Ninety-five-year-old Bishop Linus Gomes remembers the Mother as someone who, despite her popularity, was perhaps more grounded than most people around her.
“One day, Mother Teresa was returning from a meeting. As she was about to enter her convent, she saw a Muslim beggar by the door. The beggar stopped the Mother and asked her if she would kindly accept a small donation from him. Mother spread her hands and the man kept a 10 paisa coin on them. She had been looking at his face all the time. And later she said: ‘When I saw the joy on his face, I was so happy that my joy felt greater than when I had accepted my Nobel Prize in Sweden’,” Gomes recalls.
Nineteen years after her death, Mother Teresa is more alive in the hearts of a significant number of Kolkata residents, than she has ever been. People admire her not only for her contribution to humanity, but also for her charismatic personae.
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