Click to play videoKolkata: In the narrow by-lanes of Kalighat in South Calcutta near a Kali temple, the goddess of death for the Hindus stands. That’s where is situated Nirmal Hriday, Mother Teresa's first project which till date functions as a home for the dying destitute.
Since it began in 1942, nearly 85,000 people have found shelter and comfort here. 35,000 of them left this place dead.
Most of the people admitted here have serious injuries. But the only medical help at hand are untrained, though well-meaning sisters and volunteers. But then they say they have the God with them.
“We have Jesus to help us. Doctors are not better than him. When I go home to God, I feel happy,” says Sister Gladas Incharge, Nirmal Hirday.
Mother Teresa used to say that every occupant of the stretcher beds in Nirmal Hriday is the sick, dying or abandoned Christ. Every sore that is cleaned and every hand that is held is in fact His.
Her critics say she saw suffering as necessary to the salvation of sinful human beings.
The goal was not to put an end to the suffering, but to help the sufferer find joy in it.
“We have philanthropists like EG and his team who supply ambulances here, take people into clinics. It’s far superior and better than what these nuns do here,” Tariq Ali Co-Producer, Hell's Angel.
Of the 50 or so volunteers at Nirmal Hriday, only three are Indian. One of them Chandramani Agarwall began working with Mother Teresa in 1982. She keeps the records of who has died, who has been shifted to hospital. And she strongly defends Mother against those who say she wanted to convert.
“Her intention was not to convert people. Her intention was to help people. She used to say this service is my prayer,” she says.
Amidst all the death and suffering at Kalighat, there is still song and dance. Even though most of these people have been abandoned and left to die, women here sing for the good health of their brothers. Perhaps they are living by Mother Teresa's belief that if you die smiling the gates of heaven open for you.
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