She has watched her boyfriend of three years get married to another
and seen her friends gradually walk out on her.
Nobody has any time for her now and she has to depend on her mother who is a housewife.
At one time she used to carry genuine leather handbags, but today she does not have a handbag, let alone any money. She is Michelle Reimers, the woman who once made everyone catch their breath with her breathtaking beauty. She is the beauty queen, super model and actress of once upon a time whom we have all chosen to forget.
Barely two years ago she was the most beautiful girl in the world. With the world at her fingertips, Michelle Reimers could do anything she wanted, go anywhere she wanted and walk into the heart of anybody she wanted.
and seen her friends gradually walk out on her.
Nobody has any time for her now and she has to depend on her mother who is a housewife.
At one time she used to carry genuine leather handbags, but today she does not have a handbag, let alone any money. She is Michelle Reimers, the woman who once made everyone catch their breath with her breathtaking beauty. She is the beauty queen, super model and actress of once upon a time whom we have all chosen to forget.
Barely two years ago she was the most beautiful girl in the world. With the world at her fingertips, Michelle Reimers could do anything she wanted, go anywhere she wanted and walk into the heart of anybody she wanted.
Michelle Reamers never had life so good. Every night was a night of her favorite drink - Bacardi and coke and her favorite cigarette - Benson and Hedges and her favorite restaurant or hideaway - the Pub at the Hilton.
Life could not have been better for her. It was a life of parties, dinners and dates.
But today she lies in hiding. She never goes out. In a modest upstairs in Jubilee Post, Michelle Reimers cries her heart out for everything she has lost. "I wonder how everything turned out to be this bad for me," she says, her eyes glazed with tears.
Looking at her face, one could never say that it was once the most photographed face in town. The skin was pulled around it and her neck was a mass of red flesh.
"There have been all kinds of stories about me. People said that somebody threw acid on me, others said that I set fire to myself, but none of these things are true. I valued my looks and I don't think any woman who is a model will ever set fire to herself!" said Michelle.
With the good life having fizzled out from the moment Michelle Reimers' face caught fire, today she barely has any money to eat.
It is a pity, such a beautiful face, so disfigured. It is a pity such a good life, turned so difficult.
Michelle Reimers, who acted as a mermaid in Sihina Isauwa is in troubled waters today. "I do not go out of this house. I cannot work because of the way I look and I have nobody to turn to. I do not blame my boyfriend for having married someone else. I don't expect him to marry me after I got burnt. But I am hurt, I am lonely and I am so unhappy," she said.
"I was partying every night. On Saturday night, when I go out I come back home on Sunday morning," she laughs. But the tears begin to flow for now let alone the Pub, Michelle can barely step into her garden.
It was September 21, 1999; Michelle was working on a teledrama and living with her sister in Nugegoda. She had gone to her mother’s to pack some clothes for the shooting trip. "Then I went out and came home with my boyfriend. I had take a few drinks and felt that I was coming in a for a wheeze. I am on drugs for my wheezing and because I had to go shooting the next day, I took some tablets that were prescribed for my wheezing. This along with the drinks I had taken made me really drowsy. I was smoking a cigarette at that time and I decided to do it lying down. It was about 1.30 a.m." recalled Michelle.
Life could not have been better for her. It was a life of parties, dinners and dates.
But today she lies in hiding. She never goes out. In a modest upstairs in Jubilee Post, Michelle Reimers cries her heart out for everything she has lost. "I wonder how everything turned out to be this bad for me," she says, her eyes glazed with tears.
Looking at her face, one could never say that it was once the most photographed face in town. The skin was pulled around it and her neck was a mass of red flesh.
"There have been all kinds of stories about me. People said that somebody threw acid on me, others said that I set fire to myself, but none of these things are true. I valued my looks and I don't think any woman who is a model will ever set fire to herself!" said Michelle.
With the good life having fizzled out from the moment Michelle Reimers' face caught fire, today she barely has any money to eat.
It is a pity, such a beautiful face, so disfigured. It is a pity such a good life, turned so difficult.
Michelle Reimers, who acted as a mermaid in Sihina Isauwa is in troubled waters today. "I do not go out of this house. I cannot work because of the way I look and I have nobody to turn to. I do not blame my boyfriend for having married someone else. I don't expect him to marry me after I got burnt. But I am hurt, I am lonely and I am so unhappy," she said.
"I was partying every night. On Saturday night, when I go out I come back home on Sunday morning," she laughs. But the tears begin to flow for now let alone the Pub, Michelle can barely step into her garden.
It was September 21, 1999; Michelle was working on a teledrama and living with her sister in Nugegoda. She had gone to her mother’s to pack some clothes for the shooting trip. "Then I went out and came home with my boyfriend. I had take a few drinks and felt that I was coming in a for a wheeze. I am on drugs for my wheezing and because I had to go shooting the next day, I took some tablets that were prescribed for my wheezing. This along with the drinks I had taken made me really drowsy. I was smoking a cigarette at that time and I decided to do it lying down. It was about 1.30 a.m." recalled Michelle.
The next time Michelle opened her eyes was because she was feeling somewhat hot. "When I opened my eyes I immediately sat up, something was blowing around me. I saw my reflection in the mirror and I saw that my hair was ablaze," said Michelle.
Michelle's boyfriend who was sleeping in the same room had sprung to his feet on hearing her screams and run into the bathroom to get a bucket of water. "I still remember how he slipped and fell down with the bucket of water. It was my brother-in-law who threw a bucket of water on me. But by that time, I was burnt all over. My hair, my face and my neck. It was so painful," she cried.
Michelle could barely look at her face. The pain was killing her. But besides all this she was scared of the way she looked. "Even now, I barely look at myself in the mirror. It is not Michelle Reimers that I see, it is somebody else," she said. "I have been advised not to think about the looks I have lost for that might affect me psychologically," said Michelle.
Last year, Michelle Reimers made a desperate trip to the Apollo hospital in India where she had met Dr. Balakrishnan. She shows me a slip of paper - a payment of Rs.600 as consultation fees made to the Apollo hospital. The professor had assured Michelle that he could bring her looks back to about 95 per cent.
"I planned to get married when I was twenty five years old, I planned to have a baby immediately after," she confessed.
Michelle Reimers is twenty five years old this year. But Marriage is not even the last thing on her agenda.
Michelle had sent 100 appeals to all the people she knew and worked with. "But nobody, responded," she said. Stressing on the nobody. Michelle's plastic surgery will cost about six and a half lakhs and there is the money for the ticket to be considered too. It hurts Michelle Reimers more that she is able to get back her looks, but is not able to do it for want of money.
A trip to India and the plastic surgery will make Michelle Reimers the happy woman she once was. It will give life back to a woman who now seems to be dead. It will take her out of her prison in Jubilee Post back where she belongs - in society, showing her pretty face and having fun and enjoying laughter.
Each of us want something different in life. But what Michelle wants so badly is to get back her looks. How nice it would be if we could give at least one human being something he or she desires most. How humane it would be to look into the deepest longings of another human heart and be able to give it. Is there somebody in this world who is able to make this woman that most beautiful woman in the world again?
What goes around, surely comes around. And for giving this kind of supreme bliss to a woman in tears, the rewards must surely be greater.
Michelle's boyfriend who was sleeping in the same room had sprung to his feet on hearing her screams and run into the bathroom to get a bucket of water. "I still remember how he slipped and fell down with the bucket of water. It was my brother-in-law who threw a bucket of water on me. But by that time, I was burnt all over. My hair, my face and my neck. It was so painful," she cried.
Michelle could barely look at her face. The pain was killing her. But besides all this she was scared of the way she looked. "Even now, I barely look at myself in the mirror. It is not Michelle Reimers that I see, it is somebody else," she said. "I have been advised not to think about the looks I have lost for that might affect me psychologically," said Michelle.
Last year, Michelle Reimers made a desperate trip to the Apollo hospital in India where she had met Dr. Balakrishnan. She shows me a slip of paper - a payment of Rs.600 as consultation fees made to the Apollo hospital. The professor had assured Michelle that he could bring her looks back to about 95 per cent.
"I planned to get married when I was twenty five years old, I planned to have a baby immediately after," she confessed.
Michelle Reimers is twenty five years old this year. But Marriage is not even the last thing on her agenda.
Michelle had sent 100 appeals to all the people she knew and worked with. "But nobody, responded," she said. Stressing on the nobody. Michelle's plastic surgery will cost about six and a half lakhs and there is the money for the ticket to be considered too. It hurts Michelle Reimers more that she is able to get back her looks, but is not able to do it for want of money.
A trip to India and the plastic surgery will make Michelle Reimers the happy woman she once was. It will give life back to a woman who now seems to be dead. It will take her out of her prison in Jubilee Post back where she belongs - in society, showing her pretty face and having fun and enjoying laughter.
Each of us want something different in life. But what Michelle wants so badly is to get back her looks. How nice it would be if we could give at least one human being something he or she desires most. How humane it would be to look into the deepest longings of another human heart and be able to give it. Is there somebody in this world who is able to make this woman that most beautiful woman in the world again?
What goes around, surely comes around. And for giving this kind of supreme bliss to a woman in tears, the rewards must surely be greater.
By Ranee Mohamed (04th October 2001)
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