Geetanjali is a drug addict

Geetanjali is a drug addict
Staff Reporter, Times Of India, 5 Sep 2007, TNN

In the shocking wake of former model Geetanjali Nagpal being found living off the streets in Delhi, a victim of drug abuse and alcohol addiction, BT explores what makes people from the glam world reach this sorry state.

Is it stress and the inability to take fame and success that comes their way at an early age. Or something else?

Fashion photographer Akash Srivastaav, who met Geetanjali Nagpal at a party in Goa in 1997, recalls how he went up to her and said that she looked like model Ediesedwick from the Andy Warhol factory. “She had the aura of pulling you towards her. She laughed and said, ‘Though not as pretty as her.’ I was stunned that she knew what I was talking about as very few at that point had heard about Ediesedwick.”

Fashion in India was all about being pretty and angelic, then. Every model and shoot they would do were about the beautiful side of beauty. “But Geetu, as we called her, was a kind of rebel in fashion. The way she would hold her cigarette or sit, there was a sense of absolute decadence in her right from that time. We called her hateli, a term that signified headstrong, or dimag khiska, because she was wild and totally against the establishment. She didn’t care about anything or anybody. All she wanted was to be in a world of her own which didn’t follow any norm,” said Akash.

He also remembers once when he was about to shoot her, she just disappeared from the studio leaving everyone in a tizzy. Hours of searching led them to beneath a huge table inside the studio, “where madam was cozily sleeping”. Akash added, “During the years that I knew her, she never did drugs, at least not in front of me. She would occasionally drink wine. But there was an edginess in Geetu all the time. She would always say that she is intelligent and never believed in the concept of beauty.”

Delhi photographer Amir Rajpal, who shot Geetanjali Nagpal some 14 years back, remembers her as having lovely eyes, a beautiful body and a very good attitude. He can’t believe the state she is in today.

“She used to hate the sight of people smoking. How could she take to drugs herself? She was such a level-headed girl with no nakhras. God knows what went wrong, but I still can’t believe that the girl lying on a Paharganj street is her.”

Designer Rocky S doesn’t know her, but said, “When models start out early in life and get addicted to a starry life, they automatically gravitate towards destruction. The glamour world is a very high stress job, and to keep it up, at every step they resort to such abuses.” However, Manish Malhotra, who also did not know Geetanjali, refuses to believe that stress could have driven her to such measures. “The decision to ‘do it’ or ‘not do it’ is very personal. I have a lot of stress in my job too, but I don’t even smoke, so why blame it all on stress. Young models must understand that they need to look good, fresh and their job should lead them to enjoy life, not destroy it,” he advised.

Textile revivalist and designer Ritu Kumar does not recollect Geetanjali’s name or face for Noyonika and Sushmita were the leading models then. But she said, “Somehow, what she resorted to seems to be the most unfortunate episodes that could happen to a good model.”

Achala Sachdev, former model and choreographer now, added, “Who knows, maybe she had a drug problem even before she entered the modelling scene. Blaming stress as the reason is so passe. Why don’t young models understand that everyone here wants to make money, fame and enjoy life. Drugs can only add on to the problems.”

Source : Geetanjali is a drug addict article on Times Of India