for the Muslims and not for Sisters. I was a young priest who wanted to
work with intellectuals; I did not want to be busy with nuns.”^2
The following day, though, Father Van Exem met with Mother Teresa.
His initial impression was of a very simple nun, concerned with the plight
of the poor, but for the most part unremarkable. However, Mother Teresa
came away with a much higher opinion of the priest, for not long after, she
asked him to become her spiritual advisor. Again, Father Van Exem de-
murred, saying that he had no desire to become a nun’s spiritual father and
that he considered the request a diversion from what he believed to be his
true reason for being in Calcutta. But he told Mother Teresa that she
needed to put her request in writing to the archbishop of the city. The arch-
bishop granted Mother Teresa’s request. In obedience to the bishop, Father
Van Exem reluctantly assumed the role of Mother Teresa’s spiritual father
and director. She would turn to him often for spiritual advice and direction.
WAR’S END AND TROUBLED TIMES
By 1945, the war ended and Mother Teresa and her charges moved
back to the convent at Entally. During this period, Mother Teresa had
written home to her mother describing her life in Calcutta. By now,
Drana had moved to Tirana, Albania, where both Aga and Lazar lived.
Drana reminded her daughter that she went to India to work with the
poor; Drana also asked her daughter to recall the woman whom Drana
had taken in, when no one else would. Perhaps this advice spurred
Mother Teresa to rethink her duties in the convent.
No sooner had the hostilities ended with Japan, when India and Cal-
cutta were once more plunged into hostilities and bloodshed. The Indian
National Congress had been busy making preparations for India’s even-
tual independence from British rule. Working with the Congress was the
Muslim League, under the leadership of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a lawyer.
The League was pressing the Congress for the establishment of a separate
homeland for India’s Muslims to be called Pakistan. The new country was
to be formed from a partition of India.
On August 16, 1946, the Muslim League called a meeting—what
members referred to as Direct Action Day—in Calcutta in the Maidan.
The speeches given by league members inflamed an already passionate
crowd. As a result, for the next four nights, the city was the scene of
bloody riots between Hindus and Muslims. Life came to a grinding halt as
the city was pitched into terror. Militants set fire to shops with people still
inside. Sewers were filled with the bodies of the dead. Men, women and
children, cut by the deadly blades of knives, were left in the streets to
26 MOTHER TERESA