35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘THERE’S BLOODLETTING AS WE SPEAK’
in such a cynical age, it was still a plus to find her choosing to ride
the bus around her slums in the same old fifty-cent cotton sari.
I arrived at the Mother House, her headquarters, just before 5:00
p.m., as I’d been told to do. The only new building in sight, Mother
Teresa’s mission-control centre resembled a European convent: keeplike,
few exterior windows, a formidable door in the side of one
wall, with a large bell hanging to the side. I rang the bell, feeling like
a medieval pilgrim seeking shelter. A peephole slid open, and a pair
of smiling eyes asked my business.
The door was opened by a disarmingly pretty Indian nun dressed
in the familiar Mother T-style blue-bordered white sari. Inside was
a wide courtyard surrounded by neat little dormitories, with a chapel
at one end and offices at the other. It was in effect a convent, although
not all the inhabitants were nuns; some were novices, some were
poor women being educated, and some were volunteer workers.
There were, however, enough nuns to make me think every other
person was the mother herself, since the outfit and the way it was
worn, covering the head, were as inseparable from her as Mao’s
jacket was from him.
I was told ‘Mother’ was still out at a meeting, but I could wait.
The meeting was to discuss the AIDS crisis. No one knew how
long she would be. I was wondering if she still travelled by bus as I
was shown into a spartan room where a rather severe middle-aged
nun was apparently teaching a young local woman to read at a
table. I sat down on a wooden bench at another table, watching the
late-afternoon ration of monsoon rain suddenly smash down like a
convention of waterfalls on the stones outside the open door.
‘The-enn Jee-zuss sa-eed . . .’
‘Sedd! Sedd!’ said the nun severely.
Surely the Bible wasn’t the best book for beginners? When the
nun looked down, following her bony finger along the text, her
pupil glanced over and, catching my eye, grinned mischievously.
Clean clothes, regular meals, and a place to sleep were obviously
worth enduring the life of Christ – as uneventful as that life must
seem compared to the tales of Hindu gods she had probably grown
up on. The lower castes and the harijans had always been conversion
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