(6 Sep 1997) Bangla/English/Nat

Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who devoted her life to helping the world's poor, died on Friday, aged 87.

Her death came less than a week after the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales - also remembered as a woman of great compassion.

Hundreds of mourners gathered outside Mother Teresa's home in Calcutta on Saturday, devastated at the news of her passing.

Mother Teresa's body lies on a bed of ice in the chapel of the Missionaries of Charity order.

Her hands are clasped and she wears the simple habit of her order - a blue-trimmed white sari and long-sleeved blouse.

Young nuns who file past touch and kiss her feet - a traditional Indian gesture of respect.

Mother Teresa, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her life-saving work around the world, died on Friday in Calcutta, the Indian city where her charitable works began.

Her heart gave out at home in her convent.

For more than 40 years, Mother Teresa and the order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, comforted the destitute and cared for the sick and insane.

The 87-year-old nun was adored by millions as a living saint for caring for the human castoffs the world wanted to forget.

Mourners paid their respects as she lay on her deathbed - many greatly saddened by the news of her passing.

Outside her home at her Missionaries of Charity headquarters in a poor central Calcutta neighbourhood, hundreds of people gathered in the rain as news spread of the death of Calcutta's most famous personality.

Later in the morning, nuns shut the gates at the Charity as the crowds grew large, and halted public access to the chapel.

This caused anger and upset in a crowd wanting to pay their last respects to Mother Teresa - nuns and police tried to calm the emotional mourners.

As disciples and other well-wishers poured into Calcutta, her order announced that the date of the funeral had been moved back to September 13 from Wednesday.

Saturday's funeral would be just three days after the 51st anniversary of the day Mother Teresa received what she described as a calling from Jesus Christ to tend to the poorest and sickest.

Mother Teresa not only ministered to them, she also loved them.

In Calcutta's fetid slums, she took in the destitute dying in gutters, sheltered infants abandoned in trash heaps, soothed the ulcers of lepers.

It's here in Motijhil (pron. Mo'tee-jill), possibly Calcutta's worst slums, that she began her school in 1948.

At the time, Motijhil lacked a sewage system, clean water and medical care.

People suffered from tetanus, cholera and the plague.

However Mother Teresa went into the community and, on the first day, taught five children the English alphabet while they all sat next to an open drain.

Over the next few years, she went door to door, raising enough money to open a school, where she also instructed her students on hygiene.

These days, Motijhil has electricity, clean water, a sewage system and paved roads.

A former student of Mother Teresa praised the nun for having so much faith in his community.

SOUNDBITE (Bangla):
"No one has done as much for us as Mother Teresa. She has been like a saviour, and she has changed this whole neighbourhood. We can't live without her."
SUPER CAPTION: Palton Ray, former student at Motijhil School

One of Mother Teresa's original five students from Motijhil mourned the loss of her former teacher.

SOUNDBITE (Bangla):
SUPER CAPTION: Agnes Maity, one of the first five students under Mother Teresa

Navin Chawla wrote two books on Mother Teresa.


SOUNDBITE (English):


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