Mother House Museum Room

The Mother House Museum Room is at 54A AJC Bose Road, formerly Lower Circular Road, in Mullick Bazar in central Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The building is the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, the congregation founded by Mother Teresa in 1950, and she lived and worked here from 1953 until her death on 5 September 1997. She was beatified in 2003 and canonised in 2016 as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. The house is a plain three-storeyed building, with a chapel, a small courtyard and shared rooms for the sisters, built in the simple style of the congregation. Visitors enter a ground-floor tomb chamber where she is buried, marked by a plain marble slab with fresh flowers. Upstairs, a museum room preserves her small bedroom and a collection of personal belongings, including her bucket, the simple sandals she wore, her few clothes, a plain iron bed, a desk, letters, awards, and a wall of photographs showing her work with the poor, the dying and orphans. Explanatory panels describe the history of the congregation, her Nobel Peace Prize of 1979 and the growth of the order to many countries. The display is chronological and devotional rather than formally curated, and the atmosphere is quiet and prayerful. The room is kept in the condition left by the sisters and is maintained by the congregation. Visitors may attend morning Mass and leave a donation. The house is near the Nirmal Hriday and the Sealdah area and can be reached by taxi or bus.