Where are those haunting eyes now?
 
National Geographic
finds Afghan woman from famed photo		  
Sharbat Gula captivated audiences with her haunting green eyes when she appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. Her picture has now been taken again, 17 years later.
  
By Bob Faw
NBC NEWS
March 12 —  Over the years, the covers of the venerable National Geographic magazine have given us so many indelible images, including a hauntingly beautiful young Afghan woman. That was 17 years ago, and since then she’s become a kind of lost poster child for that beleaguered nation. Until now.

 

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       “He went into Afghanistan,” says McCurry. “We thought, ‘We’ll never see him again.’ And lo and behold, he came back with his sister. It was a miracle.” For the woman — Sharbat Gula — the photo was a revelation but not a surprise.
       “She said: ‘I’ve never seen it before. But that’s definitely me.’ And she remembered it so vividly because it’s the only day in her life her picture had ever been taken,” says Matson. Now a wife and mother, she lives in a remote Afghan village, prays, wears a burqa and draws water from wells.
       “Life is very difficult for her,” says McCurry. “I think she has survived remarkably well.”
But is she the right person? National Geographic hired experts to electronically scan the irises of the original and new photos.
“And after going through all their calculations, they came up 99.9 percent sure this is the same person,” says Matson.
Eighteen years later, the past and present were brought together.
“I think she certainly is an icon, I think she is emblematic of the Afghan spirit, the Afghan people and the fortitude of these people, the will to survive,” says McCurry.
Then and now.
This article was found on MSNBC.com and has been provided by Goldmania's private archive.

 

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