In the past week nearly every bank, business and insurance company in Calcutta has publicly proclaimed its loss at the death of Mother Teresa. At prime locations throughout the city billboard posters declared messages such as "to a memory we can never forget" from a dairy company whose own slogan is "Eat Healthy. Think Better."
On the front page of the local newspaper, the Telegraph, there is a large advert by an insurance company. It uses one of her many sayings: "The fruit of Love is Service. The fruit of Service is Peace." Then it adds a message of its own: "Her commitment to service is our inspiration." Yet another ad reprints a prayer and the text of a note Mother Teresa sent to an engineering company wishing it well.
It is a measure of the respect Indian society had for Mother Teresa that being associated with her is very good for business. The diminutive nun with an iron resolve could persuade virtually anybody to donate funds or carry out some service for the homes and centres run by the Missionaries of Charity. Her determination was such that anybody approached for help would consider it a major privilege to be asked.
Mother Teresa is gone and with her the celebrity she accepted as the price for developing the homes and centres that she ran. Gone too is a character which kept a strong hold on her religious Order.
So what now for the congregation of 4,000 religious at work in almost 600 homes in 124 countries?
Sister Nirmala, a shy 62-yearold nun just an inch taller than the diminutive Mother Teresa, was the surprise choice as successor last March. She is a convert from a Hindu Brahmin or high-caste family who trained as a lawyer. She does not have the charisma of Mother Teresa but is however described as calm and steady and she has managed the Order's homes and centres for some time.
Asked what will happen to the funding that they used to get, she replies that "God will take care of it", echoing the words of Mother Teresa. It is a frustrating response for those who view things more practically. All the sisters, however, including one of the Order's contemplative nuns, Sister Anne Therese, insist that "with dedication, prayer and Mother watching over us, we will carry on".
One of the Irish nuns in Calcutta, Sister Nirmala Maria, feels confident of the future of the Order. She says it is not just one person who inspires and "once she goes the whole thing flops down".
"Maybe we will suffer somewhat but what business is going to see you starving?" She adds: "Let us see what happens. That is not what you run your religious life on. God provides for his work."
Sister Nirmala Maria said the nuns had received numerous letters from bishops all over the world, who praised the Order's homes in their countries. "Surely that is not just Mother but her spirit working through the sisters."
Questions have been raised as to whether Mother Teresa's successor will have the same grip on the Order that she ran as a completely centralised structure.
Now that the founder is no longer there to control things, structural changes are expected and Sister Nirmala, considered a realist, may opt for the decentralisation of the Order into "provinces" like other religious Orders.