While I was working on her biography, I had many occasions to travel to Kolkata to interview her. Knowing that she was not keeping well I was seriously concerned as to what would happen to her Order when she passed away. I knew she had a presence working in over 120 countries, running homes for destitutes everywhere — leprosy stations in Asia and Africa, hospices for AIDS in the United States, soup kitchens all over western Europe, and had more than 150 institutions in India alone. After she passed away, I suspected that funds would shrink, less young women would be attracted to join the Order and the problems that arise when a charismatic head of a religious organisation dies. I was very diffident in raising the subject with her. Yet as her biographer I felt it was important that I have an answer. So when I finally managed to awkwardly phrase the question, she didn’t answer and instead pointed a finger heavenwards. A couple of weeks later, I raised the subject again. This time she smiled and merely said, “let me go first”. When I asked a third time, she answered, “you have been to so many of our ‘homes’ (missions) in India and abroad. Everywhere the Sisters wear the same saris, eat the same kind of food, do the same work. But Mother Teresa is not everywhere. Yet the work goes on.” Then she added, “As long as we remain committed to the poorest of the poor and do not end up serving the rich, the work will prosper.”

... contd.