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Mother Teresa , Calcutta's most famous citizen (1910-97), was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu to Albanian parents, and grew up in Skopje in the former Yugoslavia. After joining the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish order, she was sent as a teacher to Darjeeling, where she took her vows in May 1931 and became Teresa. In her work at St Mary's School in Calcutta, she became aware of the incredible poverty around her; in 1948, with permission from Rome, she put aside her nun's habit to clothe herself in the simple blue-bordered white sari that became the uniform of the Missionaries of Charity .

The best known of their many homes and clinics is Nirmal Hriday , a hospice for destitutes. In the face of local resistance, Mother Teresa chose its site at Kalighat - Calcutta's most important centre of Hinduism - in the knowledge that many of the poor specifically come here to die, next to a holy tirtha or crossing-place. Mother Teresa's simple piety and single-minded devotion to the poor won her international acclaim, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Subsequently she also attracted a fair share of controversy, with her fierce anti-abortion stance, giving rise to accusations of fundamentalist Catholicism. She was also accused by her detractors of disregarding modern advances in medicine in favour of saving the souls of the dying and destitute. Censure, however, seems iniquitous in the light of her immense contribution to humanity.

If you're interested in working for the Missionaries of Charity, they can be contacted at Mother House, 54A AJC Bose Rd (tel 033/249 7115). However, they do occasionally have to turn casual volunteers away; it's not always possible to make constructive use of all the would-be helpers who arrive unannounced.