India Post News Service

NEW DELHI: Cat walked with Sushmita Sen in the '90s, Gitanjali Nagpal today roams haywire in a state of ill mental health, begging on the roads of Hauz Khas village. It's a horrifying story of the dark side of glamour: how one false move can send a promising career to a downward spiral of drugs and self-destruction.

Being a daughter of a navy officer and a pass out of Lady Shri College, Geetanjali seemed to be set for a flashbulb career in fashion. During her stint with stardom and limelight, she came across the stress busting drugs that today have made her life a slave to intoxication.

This ex-Mount Carmel student was lately found living by the streets of Hauz Khas, spending her nights in parks and temples. She admits to have worked as a maid and spent nights with men for money to quell her craving for drugs and alcohol. Though this model's family denies all ties with her, her estranged husband, who lives in Germany with her child still waits for her.

Geetanjali was said to have been living with an American friend in Hauz Khas who catered to all her needs, but one fine morning he estranged her on the streets of Hauz Khas. Today this model is surviving on the mercy and goodness of the shopkeepers who give her some money daily taking her to be mentally unstable. When media began photographing her, Gitanjali slid the T-shirt down her shoulders like a seasoned model and posed in style.

She promised to model even better for a reward: a swim in a five-star hotel. In an ironical twist, she was chased by TV reporters, shepherded by Delhi Commission for Women and taken in a Qualis first to a police station and then to Vimhans, a hospital that deals with mental health.

Gitanjali, still striking with her matted dreadlocks and wearing a black corsette and long skirt that seemed to have all the colors of rainbow, didn't get down from the car. Rather, she abused people who approached her. Three psychiatrists talked to her in the car. They later said she had poor hygiene, had rashes all over and was irritable.