Sainted Trademark Blues

Mother Teresa's blue and white sari has been trademarked so that it is not misused. But to what end?

- Latha Jishnu

NEARLY 70 years ago, a nun who left the seclusion of her convent to work among the poorest and most destitute of Indians, shed her traditional habit to wear something more in keeping with the spirit of her new assignment. The nun, who would in due course become known worldwide as the Mother Teresa for her compassion, also made famous the traditional Bengali sari she chose as the habit of her order, the Missionaries of Charity (MOC).

Mother Teresa was a professed Loreto Convent nun when she opted in 1948 to leave its cloisters and work outside with the poor. She also opted to wear the local sari in her new avatar. She chose a traditional Bengali sari she found on Harrison Road in Kolkata (Calcutta then). The simplest of these are white saris with three coloured stripes on the border, one larger than the other two, which come in red, blue and white. Mother Teresa chose the blue-striped saris and since then, these have become the habit of the MOC but are most famously identified with her.