Rescued by Mother Teresa, Polio-affected NRI returns from London to pay homage

A young polio-afflicted child who was abandoned by his parents in Kolkata but rescued by Mother Teresa, has now returned here from London as an NRI to retrace his roots and pay homage to the late nun who will be declared saint next month.

Still dependent on crutches from his childhood battle with polio, 39-year-old Gautam Lewis, who was adopted by a British nuclear physicist from the Missionaries of Charity here, is now not only a commercial pilot himself but also runs a training school for disabled pilots in London.

He has skipped an invitation from the Vatican to attend the sainthood ceremony of the late Mother on September 4 and instead decided to have film shows and photo exhibitions in the city where he was born and where the Mother worked all her life.

At the Mother Teresa International Film Festival (MTIFF) beginning here this Friday, a 55-minute-long documentary film ‘Mother Teresa & Me’ made by Lewis will be screened at the Nandan multiplex.

“The film is to celebrate the life of that lady whom I call my second mother as she and her nuns had rescued me,” he told PTI, adding that he moved around the city and outskirts to retrace his roots.

He went back to the Rehabilitation Centre for Children, where he was admitted for two years for polio after being rescued by Mother Teresa and her nuns in neighbouring suburban Howrah at the age of three.

He remembers how he used to go to the church every Sunday with the Mother till he moved abroad following adoption at the age of seven.