When I received an invitation to be part of the TOYP 2008 I was in two minds to attend or not to attend given that it would take up what ever little time that is left for me to study for the upcoming exams. However given my association with Junior Chamber and specific request by a very good colleague of mine, I decided to be there.
TOYP - The Outstanding Young Persons of Year awards are organized by Junior Chamber International Sri Lanka on annual basis to felicitate men and women below 40 who have accomplished things in 10 disciplines. They started the program way back 1980 in Sri Lanka and every year it is becoming better.
The event was very well organized from the outset. Once I was comfortably seated my friend walked up to me and said he wanted to talk to me. He took an envelope out of his jacket and said one of the recipients, Kumar Sangakkara, to be exact, who have won the most outstanding sports person of the year award is in Australia nursing an injury and that there was a lady that has come to accept the award on his behalf and for me to read out the acceptance speech.
Now, reading up a piece of paper is no big deal, but doing it under spotlight and camera is totally another thing all together with few minutes of notice. (There were reasons for me not to walk up to the stage which are beyond the reasoning of this thread).
Two things crossed by mind at that point. My friends had great faith in me that I would do justice to the man who won the coveted title in his absence. Secondly it was an opportunity try something out which I like to do in real life.
Hope I did justice to the man and his speech by reading it out the way it should......those at the audience told me it was good......seeing the clip would tell me how I fared within that 1 -2 minutes under spotlight.
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