India, Oct. 27 -- As children, we held a complicated view of the nuns who taught us in the village school - a blend of fear, distance, and even casual dislike, a sentiment that transcended our varied backgrounds. Yet, even then, a seed of profound respect took root in me, a respect that endures, unbroken.

It was the back route to the chapel-a shortcut through the elderly men's sleeping quarters-that peeled back the curtain on a reality no one ever spoke of. From the tender age of five, this path became my routine, and walking softly between the rows of beds, amidst those who slept, pretended to sleep, or simply lay waiting for the dawn, I often witnessed the Sisters of the Destitute (Chunangamvely, Aluva, Kerala) at work.

In the faint l...