Mother House

At 54A A.J.C. Bose Road stands a plain grey building with a small sign: Missionaries of Charity. This is the Mother House, the headquarters of the order Mother Teresa founded in 1950, the place where she lived, worked, and where she is buried.

Inside, everything is austere: her tomb is a simple white marble slab in a quiet hall on the ground floor, usually decorated with flowers arranged into a word or a phrase. Upstairs, her room is preserved exactly as she left it: a bed, a desk, a bench, a crucifix. A small museum displays her sari, her worn sandals, her Nobel Peace Prize, and handwritten letters. Sisters in the familiar blue-bordered white saris move quietly through the corridors; this remains a working convent, not a monument.

Whatever your relationship to her legacy (and Kolkata itself holds a range of views), the place has an undeniable stillness, and watching pilgrims from every continent stand silently at the tomb is moving in itself.

Practical details:

• Closed on Thursdays; open mornings and again in the afternoon, with a long midday break
• Entry is free; donations support the order's work
• Dress modestly; photography is restricted in some areas, so follow the signs
• Volunteers still join the order's work at its houses around the city; inquiries are handled at the Mother House

Mother Teresa's Kolkata