Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra - making her electoral debut in next month's Wayanad Lok Sabha by-poll - invoked the memory of humanitarian icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mother Teresa Monday morning as she began her campaign, and shared, for the first time she said, the story of how she "washed bathrooms...
cleaned vessels...
(and) taught children a bit of English". Ms Gandhi spoke about Mother Teresa's 1991 visit - after her father and ex-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated - and the invitation to work with her charitable organisation's Delhi unit. ".
.. when I was 19 years old my father had just died and Mother Teresa came to meet my mother (ex-Congress chief and now Rajya Sabha MP Sonia Gandhi).
On that day I had a fever and was in my room...
but she came to meet me, put her hand on my head, and...
put a rosary in my hand." "She might have realised that since my father died, I was sad and troubled. She told me.
.. 'you come and work with me.
' So, I worked with the sisters of Mother Teresa in Delhi...
" Ms Gandhi said. "This is the first time I am speaking about this in public..
. but there is a context. My job was to teach and, on Tuesdays, we washed bathrooms, cleaned vessels, and took the children outside.
By working with them I understood the pain and trouble they faced and what it means to serve." "It was then that I learned how a community can help," the Congress leader said. Ms Gandhi's recollection, she said, was prompted by last week's visit to an .