Today it is ten years since Mother Teresa passed away. In July, 1994 she had unexpectedly passed through Delhi on her way back to Kolkata. I was able to spend a few private hours with her. During those hours she recapitulated simple things: loving, caring and sharing. She reminded me that I must work for the poor and the good of all people. “You must continue to touch the poor” were among her last words to me in private. This was a part of the legacy she left to me. I was then serving in the Union home ministry. A few days after she left, I asked a colleague what procedures would be set into motion when Mother Teresa passed away. He replied that while she was indeed the recipient of the Bharat Ratna, there was no special ceremony even for those who had been conferred India’s highest civilian honour. For some reason inexplicable to me even now, I sought an appointment with the then principal secretary to the prime minister, T.R. Satish Chandran and told him that Mother Teresa would not live long. She was seriously ill and beyond the reach of any hospital. Sister Nirmala had been elected as her successor, and Mother Teresa had introduced her to the Vatican, the Missionaries of Charity being a congregation directly under Papal jurisdiction. I also told him that when I looked after her for about a week four years ago, when she had fallen seriously ill while visiting Delhi, and there was concern expressed from chancellories the world over, from Rashtrapati Bhawan and the PMO to the Vatican and the White House; from her friend Jyoti Basu to most of Europe’s royal families. Such being the case, I informed the principal secretary that we must expect many dignitaries to fly in. Satish Chandran asked me whether the burial would be in Kolkata. I replied in the affirmative because Kolkata was her city in every sense. Knowing this, the Sisters would want her to be buried nowhere else. The principal secretary nodded in agreement. From then on I was unaware of what went on between the PMO and the West Bengal government. But anyone who watched the funeral ceremonies personally or on television would testify that far from any confusion, every last detail had been meticulously planned and executed in the intervening weeks before her death. Perhaps Mother Teresa, who herself remained so humble throughout, would have been embarrassed to see the turnout of the world’s great and good to pay their final respects.While I was working on her biography, I had many occasions to travel to Kolkata to interview her. Knowing that she was not keeping well I was seriously concerned as to what would happen to her Order when she passed away. I knew she had a presence working in over 120 countries, running homes for destitutes everywhere — leprosy stations in Asia and Africa, hospices for AIDS in the United States, soup kitchens all over western Europe, and had more than 150 institutions in India alone. After she passed away, I suspected that funds would shrink, less young women would be attracted to join the Order and the problems that arise when a charismatic head of a religious organisation dies. I was very diffident in raising the subject with her. Yet as her biographer I felt it was important that I have an answer. So when I finally managed to awkwardly phrase the question, she didn’t answer and instead pointed a finger heavenwards. A couple of weeks later, I raised the subject again. This time she smiled and merely said, “let me go first”. When I asked a third time, she answered, “you have been to so many of our ‘homes’ (missions) in India and abroad. Everywhere the Sisters wear the same saris, eat the same kind of food, do the same work. But Mother Teresa is not everywhere. Yet the work goes on.” Then she added, “As long as we remain committed to the poorest of the poor and do not end up serving the rich, the work will prosper.”The writer, an Election Commissioner of India, is author of ‘Mother Teresa’
