Super Model Geetanjali Nagpal - From Ramp to Road

Former model Geetanjali Nagpal sports a new look, following her recent discharge from hospital. (Photo/Manoj Kesharwani)  (BCCL) 30 Oct, 2007

Geetanjali will go to Hisar to spend time with her mother to make up for all years they have spent apart. (Photo/Manoj Kesharwani)  (BCCL) 30 Oct, 2007

On Oct 5, a Court in New Delhi sent the former model Geetanjali Nagpal back to doctor's care for 3 weeks. Her mother Santosh Nagpal has been asked to visit her daily. A look at the saga of Gitanjali's life, from ramp to road  7 Oct, 2007

Geetanjali Nagpal's face once reminded photographer Amir Rajpal of screen goddess Madhuri Dixit. Her lovely eyes and beautiful body convinced Rajpal she was meant for the long race. He wouldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams that Geetanjali's life would take such a hideous turn where she ended up begging on the streets.

While most girls her age were occupied with trivial things, Geetanjali knew that fashion was her forte. A Navy officer's daughter, she studied at the most reputed institutes, Mount Carmel and Lady Shri Ram College. She went on to study fashion design at South Delhi Polytechnic. Seems like Geetanjali always knew that flashbulbs were what she was meant for. What she didn't know was that midway, one wrong step would put paid to a promising career and start her on the downward spiral

This could have been the face that launched a thousand shows. And yet today, Geetanjali languishes in hospital struggling with lapses in memory and mental lucidity. Saved from a life on the streets, even if she recovers, what is her future?

Geetanjali once walked the ramp, flashing her priceless smile at flashbulbs, matching pace with the likes of Sushmita Sen. Fate decreed that Sushmita today is a diva to reckon with while Geetanjali's life moved on to a different track altogether.From the ramp, this sultry model landed on the road, trodding the dark path of drugs

Human memory is short. And fickle. Few designers or models claimed to remember Geetanjali. Why just designers? Her own mother and sister have not laid eyes on her for the past two years! Nor have they come forward to claim her since her rescue.

As she posed for the shutterbugs, Geetanjali dreamt of brighter arclights and bigger ramps. As she walked unaware of her surroundings in the streets, her dreams remained unchanged. She would still talk of fashion and a glamorous life

"We moved into a room in Kemp's Corner in 1994 and stayed together for three years. Gitu was very fond of clothes and dressing up. I remember she would design her own outfits, then take them to the tailor to be cut and stitched. I remember she was from LSR. I vaguely recall she did a course at the South Delhi Polytechnic but I can't be certain," says Sandali Sinha, who moved into films while she shared a room with Geetu

Photographer Akash Srivastava met Geetanjali at a party in rocking Goa. He told her she looked like Edie Sedgwick and pat came the reply ringing with laughter, "Though not as pretty as her!" He was taken aback that she knew of Edie, for not too many did. This was a decade back. Ten long years have elapsed and Geetanjali's voice has lost that laughter...

Geetanjali was one starry eyed girl. She was always certain she would prove her mettle in the modelling world. Even though she was delighted that her friend Sandali Sinha was turning actress with Tum Bin, she herself refused to join the Bollywood bandwagon. "I am not going to make any compromises," she told Rajpal. It's ironical that her life itself became one big compromise

When Geetanjali hit the ramp, fashion was all about being angelic. Beauty was what every camera lens craved for. Geetanjali was striking for sure, but in her own way. Photographer Akash Srivastaav felt that she brought a rebel like quality to fashion. He says, "She didn't care about anything or anybody. All she wanted was to stay in a world of her own which didn't follow any norms"

Geetanjali soon packed her bags from the Delhi modelling circuit and shifted to dreamland Mumbai. She worked with enviable names like Ritu Kumar, JJ Valaya and Jattin Kochhar and earned fair recognition. "Whenever people would ask me for a beautiful face, I would recommend her name," says Rajpal. From a beautiful face to a pitiable state, Geetanjali has gone through a strange journey

Gitanjali was always the experimental, creative type. Recalls a friend,"She would mix two shades of lipstick to create a brilliant new one. She would try out different eye make-up, she liked to do alternative shoots in black and white - Gitu was always different. She loved the tanned look and would come back with a beautiful bronze tan every time she went to the beach"

A picture perfect face, a dazzling smile, a lovely body and a rocking attitude, that was Geetanjali Nagpal. She could have been a top-notch model but fate had some other plans for her. It's not easy to believe that this charming rebel of a model, with an ambition to make it big, would end-up on the streets.

'Friendly', 'good natured', 'lovely human being' are the kind of phrases that come to everybody's mind when they recall Geetanjali. This makes her present state seem like a rude nightmare. "She was very pretty and good-looking face. We have worked together in few fashion show events in Delhi. I just can't believe what has happened with her now, " says model turned actor Sachin Khurana.

Gitanjali loved the beach and made frequent trips to Goa. It was, perhaps, on one of these trips that she was introduced to drugs. says a model friend, "Of course I recognised her the instant I saw her on TV. I can't believe what has happened to this utterly normal, ambitious girl"

Geetanjali sure was a delight for the camera, but there was more to her. "She was a level headed, intelligent and well versed. She would just not talk about modeling. You could talk to her on any subjects and she had volumes to speak," says Rajpal in utter disbelief that the girl begging on the streets is her.

What a complete irony it is that a girl who used to hate smoking is believed to have ended up helpless in the clutches of drugs. Rajpal remembers her saying once to him, "My god how people smoke?"

Rajpal remembers how when he first shot with her in Delhi, Geetanjali never appeared like an amateur. "She was only 20 when she came into modelling. She never behaved like a girl; she behaved more like a matured woman," he recalls. Where did all the maturity disappear?

Found begging in a dismal state on the streets of Hauz Khas, she doesn't seem like the same Geetanjali. Her family though believes that Geetu's debacle began bit by bit when she first gave up her career as a designer for modelling. Her sister Madhulika claims that prestigious assignments like Lakme gave her big ambitions that misled her. She took off on her own flight

Matted locks, dirty clothes and unhygienic conditions. Was it the pressure of a demanding career or bad company that took Geetanjali towards the dark lanes of drugs? Her life is known to have become merely a passage for men, walking in and out. She married Robert, a German, against the wishes of her family and had a son, Arthur, with him. And then, one fine day she walked out from here too in search of that elusive freedom

For anyone who has known Geetanjali, it's nearly impossible to believe that the girl who begs the dhabawala for food and sleeps in a temple is really her. Almost always spotted in a black top and skirt, she went about the streets carrying a bundle of books and sometimes even walked in to the fashion stores of Hauz Khas village

Maybe it was the fast life of Mumbai that she couldn't cope with or maybe it was something else - but Geetanjali did lose her best years, spending them away from the glitz and glamour she had always dreamt of, in grit and grime. Her son Arthur is nearly five years old today and is unaware that he has a mother walking the streets of Delhi somewhere. His father Robert is trying to get tickets to fly down to India for her. This sure is one fairytale that went very wrong...