Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity, that within 10 days of the broad-
cast, £9,000 ($16,000 in 2004 dollars) were donated to the organization.
Another story credits the interview with raising £25,000 (approximately
$45,000 in 2004 dollars). Although the actual figure is in dispute, one
thing is not: Mother Teresa struck a chord with the public. BBC officials
were so taken aback by the response to the interview that they broadcast
it again with even more donations coming in for the Missionaries of
Charity.
AN ACTUAL MIRACLE?
What, on the surface, appeared to have been a run-of-the-mill inter-
view had a very profound effect on Malcolm Muggeridge. Later, he ad-
mitted that when he first saw Mother Teresa walk into the room, she
appeared unique and significant. He was also very excited about the pos-
sibility of working with her again and asked the BBC to send him to Cal-
cutta where he could film Mother Teresa in action.
In the spring of 1969, Muggeridge, accompanied by a cameraman and
producer, left for Calcutta. Although initially reluctant to agree to the re-
quest, Mother Teresa eventually relented and gave the film crew her full
cooperation. For the next five days, Muggeridge and his team followed
Mother Teresa as she went about her daily routine. But it was the filming
at Nirmal Hriday in which Muggeridge later claimed to have witnessed a
photographic miracle.
Initially, both Muggeridge and Kenneth Macmillan, the cameraman,
were reluctant to shoot inside the home because of the dimly lit interior.
As it was, Macmillan had only a small light with him, and to get adequate
light seemed an impossible task. However, he had recently purchased
some new Kodak film, which he had not tried yet. He decided to go ahead
and shoot footage inside Nirmal Hriday using the new film. When Mug-
geridge and his team returned to London, they began work on the docu-
mentary. Several weeks later, as they were reviewing rushes, or the
unedited film footage, they watched for the first time the sequence shot at
Nirmal Hriday. Macmillan recounted what happened next:
It was surprising. You could see every detail. And I said: “That’s
amazing, that’s extraordinary.” And I was going to say...three
cheers for Kodak. I didn’t get a chance to say that though be-
cause Malcolm, sitting in the front row, spun round and said:
“It’s divine light! It’s Mother Teresa. You’ll find that it’s divine
light old boy.”^1THE GROWTH OF A MIRACLE 103