How To Survive a Visit to India: The Ethics of Representation

When I was growing up in Calcutta, during the twilight years of Mother Teresa, my hometown suffered a peculiar ignominy. Its leper colony had already been the subject of French author Dominique Lapierre’s 1985 novel City of Joy, adapted into film in 1992 (starring Patrick Swayze.) Mother Teresa’s hospice for the destitute, Nirmal Hriday (Home of the Pure Heart,) and the work she did in Calcutta drew attention chiefly to the city’s poverty.