MOTHER

One of the greatest or may be the greatest loss in my life,I believe, was missing the chance to meet Mother Theresa. It was somewhere in 1994. Self and two colleagues decided to visit the Nirmal Shishubhavan run by the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata(then Calcutta). Accordingly an appointment was fixed and we were asked to reach there before 9am so that we could meet the Mother. Unfortunately one of my colleagues got delayed and we could reach there only by 9.10am. To our dismay we were told that Mother had just left for some meeting. After due apologies the sister who greeted us did not forget to remind us that Mother does not wait for anyone. Needless to say that we were all very upset. But we decided to go ahead with visiting the Shishu Bhavan.There were so many children. Infants to kids, orphans, abandoned babies, disabled children and so on and so forth. It was nothing but a heart- rending scene. The entire place was so well kept. The children were so clean. They were well fed. The individual care each one of them got from the Sisters were above words of praise.I wind up in the memory of an infant.They called her Anju. She was all smiles when I went near her. She lifted her feet and started clapping her hands. One of the Sisters handed over to me a feeding bottle with milk. I started feeding her and she appeared so calm. After feeding her I took her into my arms and gave her a soft kiss.Later I was told by the Sister that Anju had already been adopted by a German couple and that she will be leaving for her new home very soon. Whenever I remember Mother I fondly remember that cute face too.