If Mother Teresa, to be canonised at the Vatican on September 4, is to be named a patron saint of anything it should be for "misinformation". In the last 20 years of her life, truth became an unknown entity to her. The media aided and abetted her lack of integrity and in a way she cannot be blamed for believing in her own lies.

Intellect was not her strong point and, for someone like her, to be surrounded by hordes of sycophants who were telling her if she said black was white then that had to be true, it became intoxicating. The media did spread the mega-myth about her, but she herself was the source. She repeatedly told the world she went around the city 24x7 "picking up" destitute from its squalid "gutters" (she did not), that she fed up to 9,000 in her soup kitchens (she did not), she never refused a helpless child (she did as a rule), that the dying destitute in her so-called home for the dying Nirmal Hriday died a "beautiful death" (they were treated harshly and often died a miserable, painful death).

Mother Teresa was an ultimate politician who worked on behalf of the Vatican. No, she was not an "agent" as that would be conspiratorial. She did not have to do much subterfuge or skulduggery in India itself, as Indians, particularly the media, were in awe of her and connived with her.

When she said in her Nobel speech that she created 61,237 fewer children from (slum) couples abstaining from sex, no one challenged her on her bogus and fantastic figure; neither did they ask her how at the height of the Cold War abortion could be the "greatest destroyer of peace" (said a thousand times, including in her Nobel speech).

I do not blame world media as much as I blame Indian and particularly Kolkata media. Here she was, a jet-setting celebrity -- although appended with the epithet "of Calcutta" -- spending six to nine months in a year in Europe and the US, making strange claims about her work and about the disgusting state of the city, but never to be seen in the city's disasters -- major or minor.

Why was she not asked why she re-used needles on her residents in Nirmal Hriday (it was official policy) when she herself received the finest care in the world's best hospitals?

Even after her death, the Indian fear of blue-bordered saris continues. On August 1, 2005, UK TV showed a child tied to a cot overnight in her orphanage -- one Kolkata newspaper grudgingly reported the matter with lots of "alleged". During her lifetime, even that would be unthinkable. She was white, she hobnobbed with President Ronald Reagan (they were closest of buddies), and oh yes, she had the Nobel -- so she had to be divine.

Did no one know that she hobnobbed with the Duvaliers of Haiti whose brutality was unsurpassed (whose opponents were often cut up and fed to dogs)? No one in India wanted to know. For the Western media, she was a metaphor, a set-piece, a stratospheric certainty of image in an uncertain and changing world. Conversely, Kolkata was the opposite metaphor of absolute degradation where "foetuses are given to dogs to eat" (as remarked by her "other self" Francis Goree).

It was beyond the West's interest, energy or remit to robustly challenge these wrong stereotypes. But did Indian journalists not know that her main bank was the Vatican Bank, a dark cavern of corruption, intrigue and murder? Before she died, it was well known that she had accepted millions from Charles Keating, the notorious American swindler, but no one in India cared.

Bengalis showed some rare guts when she was beatified through a "miracle" in 2003. Doctors, and even the then Health Minister, made statements that Monica Besra was cured by prolonged treatment, and not by an aluminium medal. Even Besra herself periodically said her cure was not a miracle. But the Vatican treated Indian opinion with the contempt it always has and proceeded with canonisation.

But what is so great about Catholic saints? People should realise a Catholic saint does not have to be saintly or nice in the secular sense, but has to be pure to Catholic dogma, especially on contraception and abortion. Jose Maria Escriva, a Fascist, is a Catholic saint; another Fascist, Cardinal Stepinac, is a "blessed". "Saint" John Paul II actively shielded the prolific paedophile and criminal Marcial Maciel over many years. Mother Teresa also wrote a letter of support for a convicted paedophile priest Donald McGuire, asking people to overlook his "imprudence".

If one looks around Mother Teresa's homes in Kolkata today, one would find many of them acceptable. But one must not forget that this comes after 25 years of campaigning by me, and also persistent global criticism from Hemley Gonzalez, the American former volunteer who in 2008 was so utterly disgusted by what he saw that he founded the Stop the Missionaries of Charity movement and founded his own Responsible Charity. Moreover, in the last six months the order has spruced up a great deal, preparing for the canonisation on Sunday.

And yet, like obliging picaninnies, the Indian government is dutifully sending a delegation to the black-magic ceremony in Rome. (Hindus please note: the Pope is not allowed to wish Hindus personally even on Diwali.)

Be that as it may, my own wish would be to reclaim Kolkata/Calcutta from Teresa -- to sever the automatic connection of the two names as the whole wide world sees it. Kolkata's image under the yoke of Mother Teresa will take a century to recover. In the last 50 years, the city has lost an unimaginable amount from the loss of international business and tourism and will continue to do so. But let us at least loudly, proudly proclaim that we have nothing to do with a medieval creature of darkness -- not any more.

(03.09.2013 - Aroup Chatterjee, who describes himself as a "militant atheist", is the Britain-based author of "Mother Teresa - The untold Story", an updated version of which was released in Kolkata in June. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at aroupchatterjee@yahoo.co.uk)

Mother Teresa deserves proper feature film: Shyam Benegal

Lonavla, Sep 3 (IANS) The "extraordinary" life of Mother Teresa, who worked relentlessly for the upliftment of the destitute and who will be declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, must be brought alive on the silver screen, says India's acclaimed veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal.

Last year, an announcement was made that Benegal had given his consent to helm a movie on the iconic nun who came from Albania to India in 1929 and set up Missionaries of Charity in 1948.

"Nobody had asked me to do it... There was a suggestion, but not now... It was when I was making a film on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. I was in Calcutta that time and some people from Missionaires of Charity had even come and met me," Benegal told IANS in an interview here at the debut edition of the Lonavla International Film Festival India (LIFFI).

The 81-year-old Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner said a project on an icon of Mother Teresa's magnitude would have required a lot of money as it has to be an "international film".

"It has to not just be for our people (Indians), but for people of different cultures, particularly Europeans and Americans... A film like that needs loosening of purse strings," he said and stressed that "she does deserve a proper feature film".

There have been movies on Mother Teresa in the past -- in 2003, there was a documentary, "Mother Teresa of Calcutta" -- made by Fabrizio Costa of Italy; in 1987, Richard Attenborough turned narrator for a documentary on Mother Teresa; and in 1997, the "Mother Teresa: In The Name of God's Poor" docu-drama was released.

In recent times, the 2014 movie "The Letters" explored her life through letters she wrote to her longtime friend and spiritual advisor Father Celeste van Exem over a 50-year period.

But a movie on Mother Teresa is yet to see the light of the day in Bollywood, where biopics have newfound popularity.

Would Benegal -- whose epochal films "Ankur", "Nishant", "Manthan" and "Bhumika" set the tone for alternate cinema in India in 1970s -- consider making it?

"At the moment, it is very difficult to say because my mind is working in different areas, different space. But Mother Teresa is a fascinating person. Not only is she a fascinating person, she led an extraordinary life.

"Coming from a different religion from Albania, where the majority of people who live are not even Christians, they are Muslims... And how she became what she became over a period of time.

"It requires not only a great amount of strength and will, but immense compassion," said the filmmaker, who has been conferred a Padma Shri and a Padma Bhushan by the government for his contribution to Indian cinema.

Benegal's tryst with biographical work has seen him make a documentary on the life of legendary auteur Satyajit Ray; "The Making of the Mahatma", a film on the early life of the Father of the Nation; and "Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero", a movie on the Indian independence leader.

(The writer's trip is at the invitation of LIFFI organisers. Radhika can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)

Miracle woman' Monica Besra will pray to mark Mother's sainthood

Kolkata, Sep 3 (IANS) As the Vatican confers sainthood on Mother Teresa on Sunday, thousands of miles away in a nondescript West Bengal village, a tribal woman will be deeply engrossed in prayer.

Monica Besra, whose "miraculous cure" started the process of declaring the Mother a saint, will seek her blessings even as the renowned nun is canonised by Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church. 

Monica is distraught at not being able to make it to Vatican, but for this tribal woman of South Dinajpur district -- whose cure led to the Mother's beatification, the first step towards sainthood, in 2003 -- this moment is equally ecstatic. 

"Ever since it was declared that the Mother will become a saint, I wanted to go to Vatican. But things did not work out. I wanted to be there to witness this historic event," said Besra, who was present at the beatification ceremony conducted by then Pope John Paul II at St Peter's Square in the Vatican 13 years ago.

"But that hasn't lessened our happiness. I, along with my entire family and neighbours, will hold special prayers so that her blessings continue to shower on us," Besra told IANS over the phone.

Diagnosed with a cancerous ovarian tumour and facing death, Besra was "miraculously cured" in 1998 during prayers with some nuns of the Missionaries of Charity -- the Mother's order -- on the occasion of the first anniversary of her death.

Besra has said in earlier interviews that she was so sick and could barely walk when she found herself before a photo of Mother Teresa. It was then that she saw a "blinding light". The nuns are then said to have pressed a religious medallion on her belly -- and when she awoke a few hours later, she was cured.

Besra's cure was subsequently recognised by the Vatican and Mother Teresa was beatified in 2003 as the "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta".

Despite Vatican's acceptance of her cure as a miracle, some doctors were sceptical and claimed Besra was cured by medical treatment. They have maintained that all she was suffering from was a cyst, not a tumour, and recovered after prolonged tuberculosis treatment. 

But today, Besra, who is about 50 years old, does not dwell on the controversies. The Mother's canonisation is a special moment, she said, not only for herself and her family, but for most of the residents in Nakor village, some 400 km from Kolkata.

"Besides holding prayers, we will be distributing sweets. Sunday is a special day for us for the entire village," Besra's son Raghunath said.