Nirmal Hriday

The name of Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying is "Nirmal Hriday." No one really uses this name though, I guess because it sounds so funny when English speakers pronounce it. When refering to the home located in the southern part of the city, volunteers usually call the place "Kalighat." Like New York City has many different boroughs, Calcutta is divided into many parts as well, and Kalighat is one of those parts. Named for its famous Hindu temple to the Goddess Kali, Kalighat is where Mother Teresa's ministy began. A sign at the door declares the home to be "Mother's first love." This fact always surprised and amazed me, that Mother Teresa would want to minister first to the dying people of Calcutta, and across the street from a Hindu temple at that. So much foreign volunteer and mission work is geared toward children, young people, even orphans. But dying people? Children are easy to love. Their smiles linger just under the surface of their skin. But at Nirmal Hriday, some of the patients I never saw smile.
To get there, it was a 20 minute bus ride from where I lived. I actually prefered the bus to walking, because even though most city buses charge you 5 rupees to be more packed than any late night campus bus I've seen in Chapel Hill, at least no one was asking me for money or food, or if they were, I felt like I could give them something without being swarmed on the street. And I don't want to leave out that a lot of Indian people show a great sense of common courtesy. I think people who can afford to ride the bus are doing alright in life, and they often slide over to make a seat for me in the "ladies only" seating (men and women don't sit next to each other on the bus) and some bus workers (the man who gives you a ticket/takes your money) have asked me where i'm from and how long I'm in town. Mostly, I think they want me to find them kind and ride their bus again. Because while many of the buses have similar routes, the bus workers make money in proportion to the number of people they pack on. And like any big city, you have to watch your bags on the bus. and on the metro. which I only took a few times.
Upon arrival in Kalighat each day about 3 pm, I put on my apron and got to work. Each of the patients rest in a cot marked with a number over his/her head. The arrangement of the cots is such that one row is just a step below a higher row and so on. My first day I expected some explanation of my duties or an orientation of the premises, but there was nothing. The first of my duties was to help with administering medication. A sister gave me a pill with instructions to deliver to patient number 17. Getting over the original shock caused by the realization that the patients were known by numbers rather than names, I found a number 17, fed her the pill, and gave her some water to drink. Looking around at the next volunteer, I discovered that I had read the number at the foot of the patient rather than the number above the patient's head. I had given the pill to the wrong person. I was immediately horrified. And that's how my first day at Nirmal Hriday began.