Humor

Uneasy Lies The Head That Wears The Crown

This became true in an instant for poor Mrs. Sri Lanka

I will continue to tell everyone that it is super entertaining to read non-political non-pandemic local news. Here’s a news item that took the crown.

Sri Lanka hosts an annual beauty pageant to find their Mrs. Sri Lanka. The 2021 edition happened recently. But it was very, very different from events held in previous years.

This one will go down in history as an event fraught with drama.

The usual events that happen in any beauty pageant concluded. The jury put their heads together and announced the winner amidst great fanfare.

As usual, the announcement takes time and builds excitement. So much so that in video clips you can see the final two contestants standing with their chests heaving waiting to hear the result. It is a wonder people don’t faint with all the anxiety.

Finally, the result is announced and Mrs. Sri Lanka (Pushpika De Silva) is crowned by Mrs. Sri Lanka World 2019 (Caroline Jurie).

And then the action begins. Not sure what transpired in between the crowning and the next set of events, but this is how I saw it unfold.

Someone hurried onto the stage and whispered some important information into Caroline Jurie’s ears. Caroline is shocked and aghast. But her sense of duty is on high. She does not waste a moment. She has to stay true to her name — Jurie. It doesn’t matter that a different jury has given the verdict already. She must do what is right. She bites her lips, hardens her aching heart, and marches back onto center stage where the new Mrs. World, Pushpika, is basking in the well-earned limelight.

Self-appointed Jurie snatches a passing mike and makes an announcement that takes the official jury, the contestants, and the audience by storm. Jurie states that the rule of the contest is that contestants should be married. Quite right, so far. Where is the but?

But, it turns out, Jurie has fresh information. Pushpika is married but divorced. Jurie has no choice but to stay true to her name. She plays judge, jury, empowered authority, and what have you. She marches towards Pushpika and wrenches the crown from her head. Pushpika is too shocked to resist. But her hair puts up a fight. This doesn’t stop Jurie who is determined. She pulls out pins and whatever else is holding that crown in place and gets that damn crown off Pushpika’s head.

A disheveled, embarrassed, shocked, and humiliated Pushipka leaves the stage. No one cares. She is now old news. Wait, she took the bouquet with her. Did Jurie miss wrenching the bouquet from her hand?

Meanwhile, Jurie does not waste a second. The crown goes straight from Pushpika’s head to the head of the first runner up. I wondered if it went with a few strands of Pushpika’s hair considering how it had been wrangled out of her head. By now, the ‘first runner up about to be Mrs. Sri Lanka’ is crying. Jurie is a kind human being. She pats her cheek and comforts her.

Everybody goes home in a state of shock.

By this time, the real jury and the organizing committee have had time to close their mouths that dropped open with Jurie’s actions. They have gathered their thoughts and their facts. Pushpika is married and separated. Not divorced. In any case, they must have known this since the beginning of time or the pageant at least. She has not withheld facts, surely?

The organizers issue an apology to Pushpika and reinstate her crown.

Pushpika is beyond embarrassed. She claims to hold no grudge against anyone but states that legal action will be taken. She cries copiously in interviews. She has to outdo the ‘nearly became Mrs. Sri Lanka first runner up’! Oh, and she also mentions the head injuries she sustained while the crown was being plucked out of her delicate head. She may have been scratched in the process. But methinks the injuries go deeper than that — they are inside the head.

The jury is still out on Jurie and her actions based on her enormous sense of responsibility. How much it must have hurt to take a decision like this all by herself. One has to sympathize with her for throwing caution to the winds and taking such a huge decision in the interest of what is required. No one in their right mind will think of doing such a thing.