My Nobel Moments

It was lovely to enjoy the magical atmosphere of celebrating the spectacular accomplishments of extraordinary men and women who had enriched the world of sciences, literature and peace, notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan after attending last week's Nobel Prize awards ceremony.

A conspiracy by my children to give me a break from my solitude in Thiruvananthapuram landed me in Stockholm for the Nobel ceremony and the king's banquet on December 10, 2023.

They must have discussed and decided that I was not likely to get a Nobel in this birth and, therefore, I should get the second best experience of witnessing the Nobel ceremony and enjoying the banquet.

My son, Sree Sreenivasan, is on the board of the Nobel Outreach Committee, which develops activities to inspire generations and to disseminate information about the Nobel prize.

I was surprised that even the Nobel Prize needed social media to make its presence felt in the world.

Every entity strives to transmit as much data as possible on the Internet so that Chat GPT has enough material to answer questions.

Sree was invited this year to the Nobel ceremony and the king's banquet with a guest.

Normally, his wife Roopa Unnikrishnan should have been the guest to go with him, but she and the rest of the family voted for me for the privilege and I gladly agreed to accept the honour.

My travel became even more pleasant because I discovered that our ambassador in Stockholm was young Tanmaya Lal, who had worked with me twenty years ago.

Also, I did not need a visa for Sweden.

Ambassador Lal and Sumita Lal gave us a warm welcome dinner at their elegant home and other courtesies throughout our stay.

I was curious when the ambassador's multi-purpose assistant, who introduced himself as Rana, turned out to be Rana Pratap Varughese, from my neighbouring town, Thiruvalla in Kerala.

His father, who lived for long in Rajasthan had given him the name of a Rajput hero.

He said he followed my programme on Asianet and asked me what the next episode would be so that he could tell his friends back home what to expect next Wednesday!

The Nobel events turned out to be more awesome than I had expected as every guest was treated like a Laureate.

After a luxurious Qatar flight with a courteous crew to Doha, I connected with a modern Finnair flight with stern hostesses and poor service.

On landing, I found that the temperature was above 0 degrees Celsius, contrary to what I was told about the extreme cold weather in Sweden.

I remembered how we used to switch on the fan whenever the temperature went above 0 degree Celsius in Moscow.

Since all the guests were expected to wear the most formal 'white tie and tails' I drove from the airport to the tailor.

Sree, who had reached Stockholm two days earlier, had prepared the ground for my 'trial' of my strange outfit.

The tailor took an hour each for both of us to be fitted with an enormous number of white and black pieces of cloth and both of us looked like penguins!

But since the event was only the next day, we had to take off each piece and pack them to take home. We were left wondering how we would put those clothes on again.

I remembered what Gandhiji said when he was asked why he did not cover himself adequately when he called on King George V.

'His Majesty was wearing enough clothes to cover both of us!' the Mahatma said.

The first event was a reception in honour of the new Nobel Laureates, attended by a thousand people.

Though images of the Laureates were on the wall, it was hard to distinguish them from the guests.

We took pictures with some people and some of them turned out to be Laureates.

Since it was an informal reception, we were able to slip away to the ambassador's private dinner with Indian delicacies.

Memories of events of twenty years ago enlivened the conversations as we updated each other about our careers and children.

Traditionally, the Nobel Prizes for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Economics are given by the king of Sweden in Stockholm and the Nobel Prize for Peace is given in Oslo by the king of Norway on the same day.

The timing is fixed in such a way that those in Oslo could fly to Stockholm to attend the ceremonies there.

As it happened, the Peace Prize event was poignant because the prize was received by the two children of the winner as she herself continued in an Iranian prison. The children told a stunned audience that they did not expect to see their mother ever again.

In Stockholm, three were awarded the prize for Physics, three for Chemistry, two for Medicine, one for Literature and one for Economics.

Awards in each category was introduced in detail, then the king presented the prize to each of them.

A standing ovation was given to each winner, but no opportunity to speak.

They were able to reply only at the end of the king's banquet by midnight.

As the audience, we simply had to rise and applaud each winner.

Walking on the ice without dropping our unfamiliar and ill fitting suits was the only hazard.

Those who did not enjoy first class Western music had the additional ordeal of having to keep awake for hours.

The ceremony ended early the next day and all of us were taken to our respective hotels by buses.

The monarchy is very much alive and well in Sweden and the royalty was present for the ceremony and banquet.

The king said nothing except for a one line toast to Alfred Nobel. The respect given to the royalty was beyond belief in democratic Sweden.

Sadly, the backdrop for the Nobel Prizes were two wars in Europe and its vicinity. But that did not affect the pomp and glory of the Nobel ceremony.

It was lovely to be there to enjoy the magical atmosphere of celebrating the spectacular accomplishments of extraordinary men and women who had enriched the world of sciences, literature and peace.

Ambassador T P Sreenivasan is a frequent contributor to Rediff.com.
You can read his earlier columns here.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com