She flashed into my mind suddenly. The National Geographic Girl…with The Eyes.
So I re-traced her story.
She is like a desert flower untouched by modernity, frivolity and artifice.
She is completely beyond the frippery awarded overt significance in the West. Money. Power. Fame. Fake.
She is baffled by the fuss that was made about her face.
A blog commenter suggested that she be given compensation for her image being used worldwide without her knowledge –
…but what would you give her?!
Make up? Louboutins? A new car? Silicon breasts? Perhaps a starring role in a new TV reality series? Money even… Although her world is hard, raw, bleak and uncompromising, she is one of a rare group of humans who cannot be bought.
Back Story
Hers was the picture that made you look twice as you were leaving the newsagents. The dazzling fiery beauty of the unknown girl with the swimming pool eyes struck a chord with a lot of people. Indeed Mr Steve McCurry who took the picture won awards for it. She was nonplussed when the photograph was taken because it was anti her culture, obtrusive and unexpected, although eventually permitted. He had found her in a refugee camp in Pakistan and had taken the photo old stylee, where he would have to wait for the result. He hadn’t expected anything quite so intensely striking.
Her name is Sharbat Gula and she was around six when her parents were killed by the Soviets carpet bombing her country. (Her age is guesswork).
Steve McCurry went to find the mystery girl seventeen years later armed with the photograph.
Against all odds he was led to her by various community members after a few false starts. (Despite attempts by some to pretend to be Sharbat, she was verified by a scar on her nose and eye mapping technology).
At around thirty today, her life is raising her two remaining children in between wars. She lives a sparse country life with no schools, clinics, running water or any of the amenities we take so much for granted.
She had never seen The Picture and her culture forbade her expressing any emotion about seeing the photographer after so many years. She did not look at him and did not smile at him. The various males of her family communicated with the photographer on her behalf as direct communication with the opposite sex is permitted only with her husband.
She is uneducated and isolated and liked the rule of the Taliban.
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Much thanks to the following:
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