By Michele Leight

The dirt lane that led to "Mother House" from Lower Circular Road back in those days is now paved over. Signs abound to guide the thousands who visit Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity headquarters in Calcutta today. Her simple tomb of white marble stands in the room in which she prayed with the sisters of her Order every morning. It is as unpretentious and simple as a room can be - like Mother herself, no matter who she was with. Mother liked to keep things simple.

Those seeking connection to an extraordinary human being - who has now become a household word and a Saint - come from countries around the globe. Curious, sleepy young tourists with backpacks, the devout, those who believe they are walking in the footsteps of a saint, and those who knew her in the early days of her mission to help the poor, all trudge up the lane to pay Mother a visit, even though she is no longer with us - physically that is.

If you ask anyone in Calcutta where the home of "Mother" is they will tell you. Cab drivers, ricksha-wallahs, cyclists, all beam as they claim her for their own. She has made Calcutta famous, she has brought many tourists, they love Mother. Her densely lined face looks out from framed photos in churches, doctors and dentist's waiting rooms, clubs, schools and private homes, and her image even pops up beside garish Bollywood posters pasted on city walls and railway stations. She is a beloved icon across Calcutta, the adopted city she loved. Bookstores have tables and several shelves devoted to the Nobel Peace Prize winner - and canonized saint - whose name is synonomous with Calcutta, the city that she first began her mission.

Mother Teresa used to teach Moral Science at my childhood convent school. One day she decided there was so much more to be done than teach Moral Science, so she headed off alone into the bustees and slums of Calcutta. The rest, as they say, is history.

All this iconic imagery, fame and sainthood takes some getting used to.When I was a young child Mother Teresa was not yet world famous. My mother had a picture of her on her bedside table - right by her favorite books by the Brontes and Jane Austen. Every year we went to be blessed by Mother. That was something my mother wanted, and we went along.

For me the image of Mother Teresa's face is a private one. Going to "to be blessed by Mother" was as natural a ritual as Christmas, birthdays and our annual trip to Puri. My mother referred to her simply as "Mother" and I heard her in telephone conversations with her numerous times a week, discussing venues for future benefits, the leper colony in Asansol, the Pope's visit, movie premiers, children's Christmas parties. They talked and talked, about "Nirmal Hriday" in Kalighat, and most of all Shishu Bhavan, Mother's orphanage on Lower Circular Road, which was the place my mother loved most, because it was filled with children. She was known simply as "Mother" to Calcuttans - someone very special and beloved in the community who loved and cared for the poor.

I was very young the first time I spent more than a few minutes with Mother, perhaps 7 or 8 years old. My mother decided it was time for me to accompany her on a lengthier visit. At last I was grown up enough (I remember thinking). I did not know exactly what my mother did for all the hours she went away with Mother in the car. All I knew was that she was very important to my mother. I have to confess, I was a little jealous in those early years, because my mother spent so much time with her and away from us. But that changed once I saw what they did together.

Rarely a week passed when they did not speak. A few times Mother was seated in our car when my mother picked me up from school, always smiling and humorous, never asking the usual questions about studies. Instead she asked if I was happy and was I good to my brother and sister. She fully approved of my self-confessed favorite activity - playing in the garden - which impressed me no end. Unlike other adults she did not think it irresponsible: I could tell by her smiling eyes that she understood children.

The dirt lane to Mother House was quiet except for the twittering of sparrows and the incessant cawing of crows that is so much a part of the audio backdrop of India. I held my mother's hand as we walked and noticed how happy she seemed. (Since my childhood, the lane to Mother House has been paved over with ashphalt)

It was peaceful in the lane after the cacophony of the congested road and the teeming crush of humanity. Calcutta is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. A high wall protected Mother House in those days and the sign to the left of the simple wooden doorway said " IN." Above the "IN/OUT" sign was a large bell, a lot like our school bell, which my mother rang as she had done many times before.

When Mother was not in residence the sign said "OUT" my mother explained.

A young postulant in full white - without the distinctive blue border of the ordained sister's of Mother's Order - opened the door, smiling in recognition of my mother. She bowed her head down towards folded hands in a gracious 'namaste," the Indian gesture of welcome. "I will call Mother" she said, and disappeared through a curtained doorway.

My mother and I sat on the bench and watched the birds darting about. I was alittle nervous, but my mother was totally at peace. I noticed how sparse and clean the courtyard was. The only decorations were a palm tree and a few young plants being nurtured to growth in terracotta pots. It did not need anything else. The atmosphere there was so peaceful and beautiful.

"I must talk to Mother about the children's Christmas party," she mum, "and you can help with it if you like."

Although this was a subtle reminder on the part of my mother to be well behaved and somewhat inconspicuous, I felt included, part of her charmed inner circle and no longer the child listening to the parent's "other" life through phone conversations, and hasty glimpses of the two of them darting off to unknown destinations in the car.

Mother appeared through the curtains and took both my mother's hands in hers. She loved my mother, that was clear.

I held back, being naturally shy, but Mother soon had me smiling and laughing as we discussed the antics of the sparrows. She was the first adult person who did not mention my shyness, understanding intuitively that it only made things worse and my face redder. My mother produced the bulging 'children's party' file and they sat together while I immersed myself in observing the sparrows in the courtyard. The acoustics in the walled courtyard magnified their ecstatic twittering and tweeting. They were such little things, yet they made such a din I remember thinking. Their bouncing around on matchstick legs made me dizzy.

"They should have the food in boxes" said Mother "because if they eat all the food at one time they will be sick. They are not used to it, they do not eat cakes and sweets everyday. They run around and get excited. Please make sure there is fruit.....that will keep longer. We will tell them to leave some things in the box to take home. This way the children will be able to enjoy their treats over a few days. They will not be gone in one day.... they love games, they must have lots of games...." she said.

My attention drifted to the birds.

My mother jotted down all Mother's comments and preferences on the yellow legal pad from my father's office, adding her suggestions and thoughts from time to time. My mother fundraised constantly for Mother's support charity, a laypersons "Co-Worker" group for Mother's Mission in Calcutta. Once a week there were meetings at various houses, including our own, and Mother often came to them, pausing to pray either at the beginning or the end of each session. The atmosphere was happy and informal, and no one minded if a young person or two strolled in curiously to peer at them sewing sequins on felt Christmas stockings. They had a good gossip as well and verdicts were sought on the latest hairstyles - Audrey Hepburn, Liz Taylor and Sophia Loren were winners.

The children's Christmas Party was an annual event and everyone loved being involved in it. Several hundred of Mother's orphans attended, and the venue was usually at one of the schools with large enough grounds to handle the energetic and eager youngsters, the high-octane games, and the sit-down picnic of individually boxed goodies - Mother's brilliant idea - donated by local restaurants, corporations and private individuals.

Women like my mother solicited all their husbands business associates and friends who headed big companies - as determined as though they were on an Everest expedition. Woe betide the man who dared refuse these ladies!

I helped at the children's party by handing out boxes of food and gifts, spoons for the egg-and-spoon-race, sacks for the sack race and so on. My roles were not terribly important but I loved being near the joy and love of life of those children. Their joy was total and filled with gratitude. It was the happiest of the occassions I associated with Mother.

I can still hear the shrieks of delight of those children as they ran around the grounds.

Memories of the children in Mother's orphanage on Lower Circular Road - Shishu Bhavan - are lodged permanently in my heart, and will never be erased. Nor will the the gentleness, experience and humor of the nuns who cared for them.They set the bar high for my love of children. I remember the makeshift clinic in the courtyard behind the large wooden gateway, (in those early days), and nuns in white saris with blue borders stirring the curries, dhals and bhajis in large dekchis balanced on chulas for the mid-day meal and the soup kitchen. Children darted about happily - everywhere. They were clean, sweet and spunky and pulled at the petticoat under my dress, asking me what it was. Indian petticoats went all the way to the ground. My short, lace-edged one was a curiosity. When I had a Beatles haircut they thought I was a boy in a dress - but I explained about the Beatles.

Upstairs in a quiet, darkened corridor of 'Shishu' were the row of "preemies" or premature babies. I had never seen beings that tiny before; miniature human beings with closed eyes and tightly closed fists the size of a grape. They were usually fast asleep with tubes attached to them, incubators protecting their fragile body temperature and endangered lives. Some were so small they could fit in the palm of a man's hand.

My mother told me that many of the "preemies" were left at the gates in the dead of night in boxes or wrapped in rags or newspaper. Their desperate mothers knew that the nuns would save them and care for them when they knew they could not.

Johnny Walker, my favorite child at the orphange, had come to Shishu Bhavan that way. He was named after the whiskey crate in which his mother had placed him before she abandoned him at the gates of Mother's orphanage - Johnny Walker.

Johnny was disabled and paralyzed from the waist down, and shuffled about without a wheelchair. He was mentally disabled as well but he was not separated from the children, and everyone loved his sunny personality. Mother did not believe in separating the mentally disabled children from the others.

Boy, could Johnny Walker sing! He sang whenever he felt like it, belting out songs of his own making, or Hindi movie tunes and familiar nursery rhymes. He sang louder when he was not supposed to, making everyone laugh, and he sang when there were visitors, and he sang when he was given his dish of food. He had a beautiful voice. He sang like he felt lucky he had come to Shishu, lucky for the love he received, love that was not owed but freely given.

When Johnny had fits - he had epilepsy as well - he was gently soothed by one of the nuns till his tremors subsided. It saddened me to see him that way, but the nuns assured me he was okay, that God was watching over him.

That was when I understood how important God was, that God could do somehting like that for Johnny so he did not know his own suffering. I do not recall ever seeing Johnny Walker sad. I can still hear his high notes ricocheting around the courtyard walls of 'Shishu,' to the delight of all.

As a child I thought God sang through Johnny. Children are the best. They don't complicate things. They have imagination and faith.

My mother would not let me go to Nirmal Hriday in Kalighat, Mother's home for the dying. She said it was not a place for young children. But she went often with Mother or on her own. She told me that Mother believed very strongly that those who were dying and had been abandoned needed to feel loved the most. She wanted to offer them a dignified death, after life had let them down.

In all honesty, I did not understand death back then. I was just too young.

Mother and her nuns offered the dying their favorite meal at Nirmal Hriday before they died - whatever their heart desired. Some asked for grapes, many asked for sondesh, a special Indian sweetmeat. One of the most popular requests was for fish, a favorite of Bengalis, often associated with happy and auspicous family events like the birth of a baby or a wedding.

Mother Teresa spoke of one woman repeatedly at gatherings and meetings through the years, even after she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She described how she found her abandoned in the gutters of a slum, infected with lice, TB and maggots. When she was cleaning and changing the dying woman back at Nirmal Hriday - personally removing the maggots lodged in her flesh - she said the woman held her hand and said over and over again:

"My family did this to me, they put me out of the house to die alone."

It was the word "alone" that Mother always focused on. Time after time she emphasized "alone" and "unloved" so there was no mistaking their significance:

"Make sure you look first to your own families and see that they are cared for and loved. Take care of your own, then there will be no poverty.There is no greater poverty or suffering than being unwanted and unloved," she said.

Mother never understood putting parents in an old people's home or anything like that. It was a completely alien concept to her. She worried about the homeless in a wealthy country like America, where she opened a home in the Bronx. She said the poor in the West were more isolated than the poor in India who had so much company.

Mother had such love for the poor, the stigmatized and the marginalized. Her relentless mission to improve the lot of lepers in India was life-long and meant a great deal to her. If she were alive now, she would be championing people living with HIV/AIDS and the horror of unmedicated full-blown AIDS.

India needs religious leaders to speak out against the injustice of unmedicated AIDS and the stigma associated with the disease. It is such a violation of human dignity - and fundamental human rights - in life and in death.

Dignity for the outcast, the stigmatized, the forgotten and abandoned - in life and death - was vitally important to Mother. For her this was the ultimate test of humanity. Those who walked beside her would by necessity have to walk where the shunned and the outcast walked. Her standard for humane treatment of any person was one of her own creation, yet she did not impose it on anyone - except by the extraordianry example she set in her daily life and practice. Mother had no recriminations for those who could not walk her road. Her strength came from her deep faith, which nothing - not even the worst atrocities - could erode.

Mother loved the poor for their generosity of spirit, their hope and their humanity:

"Look in the faces of the poor in the bustees, in the slums and you will see them smiling. They may have no food in their swollen bellies, no roof over their head, but whatever they have they will share with others who are poor like themselves. They are not alone because they have each other."

Above all Mother loved children and small babies. I remember her saying they were the closest thing to the divine on earth.

So many years have passed since that sunny spring morning in the courtyard of Mother House. I see them - my mother and her treasured Mother - seated with their heads bent together as they read a page from the 'childrens party' file, smiling and nodding;

"It is so good, no, to give the children a party?" said Mother as we departed.

Birdsong and the touch of Mother's hand on my head are memories entwined:

"You help mummy ok?" she said. The famous wrinkled smile and twinkling eyes marked the end of our visit and the weathered wooden door closed.

My mother and I were alone in the lane, wending our way back to the car and the multitudes on bustling Lower Circular Road. The twittering sparrows remained with Mother at Mother House, to be revisited another day.

Whenever I see sparrows I think of Mother. I feel her spirit in their joy and optimism and boundless energy.

Sparrows are everywhere, thank goodness - gentle, sweet things. She loved them and all birds and animals as did her favorite saint, Francis of Assissi, whose prayer my mother had on her bedside table throughout my childhood, beside the photo of Mother with "God Bless You, Mother Teresa" inscribed in her own distinctive handwriting.

There are hundreds more memories, and sparrows everywhere, to bring them to life.

For all of those who knew her then, she will always be "Mother." She walked where few dared to tread and she witnessed her fellow human beings at their lowest ebb, in their worst hours. She found and inspired hope in the most degraded and despairing circumstances, but Mother never tired and she never recoiled from what she found. Instead she extended the suffering and the outcasts her strong, sinewy hand, and took them away from the stinking hovels and garbage piles in which she found them. She gave them the one thing she had in abundance - her love - before they departed this earth for the heaven she was convinced they were soon to enter.

Way back then they knew she was a saint. Those she saved did not need anyone to tell them that.

I have a small, timeworn booklet with frayed corners commemorating Mother's 1979 Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. My mother gave it to me for good luck when I left India to study in a country far from my beloved family and my childhood home.

The cover of the booklet bears a picture of Mother with a small baby, (illustrated above) and a few lines: