The people who turned up crying inconsolably at the funeral of Graham Stewart Staines, 58, lost their mentor and guardian when the Australian missionary was torched to death along with his sons on Friday night by Hindu fundamentalists.

The heart-rending scene was peopled by leprosy patients, some cured, some still suffering, a section who found solace and livelihood with Staines when society, including the so-called guardians of culture, alienated them.

The Brisbane-born Staines came to India in 1965, and was stationed at Rairangpur, the subdivisional headquarters of the tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj district in Orissa. For more than three decades, he has been there -- with his Evangelical Missionary Society -- among the tribals, working for the poor and the leprosy-afflicted.

The society's presence inMayurbhanj dates back to the Raj. It came to the district in 1895, and within a year, the Maharaja of the erstwhile princely state of Mayurbhanj, opened a beggars' home and handed it over to the mission. The Mayurbhanj Leprosy Home, then called Mayurbhanj Leper Asylum, was born. It shifted to its present location on the outskirts of Baripada town in 1907.

A century after it was set up, the Leprosy Home is the only hope for scores of people turned away by the society. Patients come here, stay until they are cured. Around 80 to 100 patients are being treated at any point of time at the Home, where Staines was the Father, though he was called Dada by the inmates.

Kautlu Majhi and his wife Sharada Mahato, both cured leprosy patients, continue to stay as inmates in Staine's Home. For Kautlu who manages the Home as the house-father and Sharada who is the house-mother, Staines was the saviour. They recall their Dada spoke to them in fluent Oriya. He taught them how to make mats out of rope and basket from Saboigrass and hand weaving. He showed them there was life after leprosy, and dignity.

Staines settled many within the Home when discharged persons could not find occupation outside. A case in point is Nathan Munda and his wife Padma Munda. Padma serves medicines to the female inmates, while Nathan keeps accounts. Rajani Mahanto now dresses the wounds of the patients. All of them shiver when they realise that their Dada is no more.

You did not have to be an inmate of the Home to know Staines. Santanu Satpathy, a senior general manager with a company in Orissa says ``if words like courtesy, grit and social commitment needed personification, then it was Staines''. ``He was a wonderful man with many qualities, with love for nature and active social life,'' he adds.

Bibhu Prasad Das, an advocate and a former president of the Rotary Club of Baripada, describes Staines as a truly dedicated, exceptionally soft-spoken and affectionate man. Housewife Gayatri Mahapatra says `Staines Bhai' was a true missionary. ``Hewas known as Staines Bhai among the cross section of the society,'' she says.

Dr Binod Kishore Das, a skin specialist who treated patients at the Mayurbhanj Leprosy Home, says the void will be hard to fill. True, when one witnessed today hundreds of leprosy patients, including great many from Baripada, in Raghunathpur village, who trooped woefully to the funeral of the man who gave them life, people who symbolise that as long as there is suffering the mission of the likes of Staines will continue.