{"id":43693,"date":"2012-06-02T19:15:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-02T19:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=43693"},"modified":"2012-06-03T22:10:57","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T22:10:57","slug":"oh-those-gratiaens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/oh-those-gratiaens\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh Those Gratiaens!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Frederica Jansz<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0–<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Frederica Jansz<\/p><\/div>\n

Everybody looked as if they were something out of Jurassic Park. It was probably the eerie blue lighting. As I perched myself on a chair I whispered softly to my companion on my right that she looked good. She actually did. Despite the awful lighting \u2013 perhaps because she had wisely chosen white for her attire and plenty of makeup as she herself hissed back. Unlike me \u2013 who looked like the French flag \u2013 waving under terrible blue lighting.
\nThe Gratiaen Prize, which was instituted by Michael Ondaatje in 1992 with the money he received as joint-winner of the Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient, is awarded annually to the best work of literary writing in English by a resident Sri Lankan. The Prize, intended to encourage English writing by Sri Lankans, is named after Michael Ondaatje\u2019s mother, Doris Gratiaen.<\/p>\n

The judges selected each year by the Trust make their choice from an increasing number of entries.
\nMuch as I admire Michael Ondaatje, the man must never be allowed before a TV camera. The show began with everybody forced to watch Michael expostulating on why and how he had won an award \u2013 I forget for what \u2013 (clearly for writing a book of course) a video which was repeated over and over as guests trooped in \u2013 which is why I even forget what award he had won or where \u2013 an overdose of television gimmickry always does that to me \u2013 my mind simply goes blank unless it is a showing of \u2018Desperate Housewives.\u2019 Putting Ondaatje in a loop..NOT a good idea!!
\nThe only person at the head table who had a clear understanding that nobody must speak for longer than three minutes was Anirvan Gosh Dastidar the CEO in Sri Lanka of the Standard Chartered Bank. Everybody else who was allowed to grab the mike labored their point to the extent where I vacillated between yawns and inane giggling\u2026.the elderly man who announced the prize for translation even forgot the name of the prize winner!! This after stuttering through a rambling speech which was conspicuous for its lack of clarity. A male companion giggled right through the entire proceedings. Until Jill Westaway, head of the British Council in Colombo and Chairman of the panel of judges, got up and told us all how trying it had been to select the winner and that the decision was not unanimous. Oh please! Why she thought that would interest anybody is beyond me. She also forgot to limit her lament to three minutes. Awards should be presented with style highlighting the people who win rather than the process of choice, judging etc\u2026 so much was said that we did NOT NEED TO KNOW?????
\nAs for all those at the Head Table apart from being full of themselves, looked dead bored throughout the proceedings. The winner \u2013 Madhubhashini was charming \u2013 I cannot however comment on her work given that it is unpublished and over 500 pages long. For sure, this is one book I will not ever be reading. Then there were the readings. All good \u2013 except for Dereck \u2026. Somebody needs to tell that boy that you don\u2019t yell into a microphone!
\nOh and then there was somebody whose claim to fame is that he attended on the mafia thug Duminda Silva as his anesthetist \u2013 the guy turned up one hour later that he should have \u2013 missed his assigned schedule for a reading and as a result Neidra Williams had to step in and read poetry which she had hardly had more than a minute to scan before being called upon to do so. And then there were the cocktails. The wine flowed \u2026.one woman even ended up on the floor!! \u2013 and finger food sparse with only the cutlets as a saving grace. The chicken wings were ghastly and I spotted someone actually wincing in disgust before tossing a half chewed wing on the floor behind the bar.
\nIt might have been polite on the part of the organizers to leave the chairs as they were until the guests had left instead of clearing the floor and noisily piling up chairs ladder-style simultaneously as the wine was being gulped. The icing on the cake was the waiters soliciting a white man in my group \u2013 of course he absolutely loved the attention and lapped it all up.
\nAs for me \u2013 I really needed a good tall strawberry marguerita after all this \u2013 which I swallowed with relief at a water hole nearby on cushioned comfort \u2013 and under normal white but subtle lighting \u2013 where I checked my face in the mirror to make sure I no longer resembled a lysine-deficient female from Michael Crichton\u2019s 1990 science fiction novel \u2013 Jurassic Park.<\/p>\n

Sunday Leader<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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