Back in 2012, when her story broke in the Aman Ki Asha’s Pakistan pages, several national and international media outlets carried the story. This is the second time Geeta has come under media spotlight. "To be honest, everything we know about Geeta is what we gathered from her wordless 'explanations.' But this is all we know.” Second time lucky? She claimed that she has four sisters and lost her way when she visited a religious melaa (fair) near the border with her father. We don’t know."įaisal said that Geeta had also shared a phone number with the international Indian code, but it was short by a few digits. "Maybe she is writing in a regional language or they are just words she learnt to copy as a child. She greets them with a smile and leads them to her favourite room, unlocks the doors of the temple and eagerly shows them the sheafs of papers she has scribbled on, with what looks like Hindi letters.įaisal said he took Geeta's writings to people fluent in Hindi, but they could not make any sense out of her scribbles. When the media persons come to visit her, Geeta is all prepared. I don’t know how much more she has to wait."
"She wants to go back because she misses them. "Here in Pakistan, she is an amaanat of her parents with us," meaning that she is keeping her in trust for her parents as a custodian. "Only then will I dress up as a bride, with my father’s blessings."īilquees Edhi thinks of herself as Geeta's guardian. "I want to fly back to India," Geeta gesticulates with her hands. She likes to keep the doors of the temple locked and doesn't let other children enter the room.įaisal’s mother Bilquees Edhi, who practically raised Geeta and gave her the name she is known by, insists that she should find a Hindu man of her choice and "settle down."īut Geeta won’t listen. She has a private temple, her favorite space in the building – a spick and span room with posters of Hindu gods: Lord Krishna, Lord Rama and Sita, goddess Durga, Shiva and Parvati and a small statue of Lord Ganesha resting on a table, alongside with earthen lamps and incense. Geeta gets treated like a special inmate at the shelter.
CHILD ARTIST IN BAJRANGI BHAIJAN MOVIE
She was barely an 11-year-old child back then, they handed her over to the Lahore branch of Edhi Foundation - Pakistan’s largest social welfare organisation, founded by Faisal’s father Abdul Sattar Edhi.įaisal has not watched the movie yet, but after hearing the story line from friends and journalists, he thought Geeta deserved some credit for the script. Geeta was found wandering near the India border in Lahore in 2002 and was taken by soldiers of Pakistan Rangers.
"She explains the address of her hometown to anybody who visits her, hoping that the more she explains, the better her chances of returning to her family." "She wants people to find her family in India," said Faisal Edhi, the head of Edhi Foundation. But for the past few days, she is carrying the swagger of a celebrity as the local media is flocking the shelter home to follow up on her story after the release of Salman Khan Starrer Bajrangi Bhaijan in Pakistan. For the past 13 years, Geeta has been living in Pakistan, but she refuses to call it her home.Ĭlad in a regular shalwar kameez, this Indian girl, who can neither hear nor speak, does not look any different from the other girls staying at the Edhi Shelter Home in Karachi’s old city area of Sharafa Bazar.