Endometriosis Foundation of America: Blossom Ball – 2010
And I think I would like to blame the Sanford Chardonnay for my retardation. Okay. Thank you. She does sound fabulous; look at this, cute every day, thank you.
Next, I would like to introduce the person responsible for tonight, Padma!
Not only is she a host, an actress, a model, one of the 50 most beautiful people, one of the 25 most interesting people, Victoria’s Secret named her the sexiest chef. I am feeling a little inadequate, and my skin is not nearly as nice as hers, but I really I am happy to be here tonight. She is so wonderful, she is responsible for this whole night, and she is also a new mom, the most important credit to her name, please welcome Padma.
Padma Lakshmi
Good evening. Okay. No notes, screw it.
Thank you all for coming here, and Heather, I am sorry that we were so rude and did not listen to your stand up because you are a really funny lady and I appreciate you flying all the way across the country. We are a bunch of hooligans but hopefully we will be big spending hooligans later at the live auction, so drink up, everyone.
I want to thank each and every one of you really for being here, and before I say anything else I would also just like to take a moment to really thank all the people that you do not know the names of, other than Tamer and I. Like Carolyn Goltra, our managing director, who has done a phenomenal job and Tucker Gurley, who really never stops one minute and makes me tired, although I am his boss. Also to Alexis Garry and Samantha, and to all the little elves who strung up these candles and decided where you were going to sit, and told me not to get more booze and everything else, thank you all. It is a beautiful evening and I hope you are having a great time because a lot of people worked hard while Tamer was off doing surgery, and while I was filming and having a baby, and all the other shit that I do. So, thank you to everybody who helped tonight. I salute you, and I know that Tamer does too. We really appreciate all that you have given to this charity; it is not going unnoticed. It is important for me to say that because I am humbled by the goodwill that is around the room.
Also, I will not tell you my whole story because a lot of you were here last year and you know my story, but I will say that when I was thinking about what I wanted to say tonight, that really kitschy song from the Sound of Music came into my head, you know, somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good. That is really how I feel because I am Indian, and I believe in karma. Last year when I was told by a doctor that I could not have children because of my condition, I was galvanized into starting this foundation, and soon after we had a ball much like this one. I found out through very in-ideal circumstances that I was pregnant, and so I believe that God or the universe or somebody, paid me back for opening my mouth and speaking about a very painful and very delicate problem that I had suffered with for years. I am very blessed to celebrate tonight with all of you the three-month birthday of my daughter, Krishna. You know, you do not have to clap, every creature procreates; it was just a weird way that I did it but that is okay. I will take her any way I got her.
But also, I have been really blessed. I have been incredibly blessed by lots of people around me. I am incredibly blessed to have met through a wonderful doctor, Dr. Primas, Dr. Seckin; and Dr. Seckin has changed the very quality and fiber of every aspect of my life. There are other doctors in this room who are wonderful people, some of them in my family who do amazing work and dedicate their life to catering and caring for the well being of all of us. As someone who has a lot of physicians in my family, and a lot of physicians, unfortunately, in my life, I want to applaud all of you and say that you have made my life better and so, thank you.
It is really true, and through all of this I also had a person who unwaveringly gave me just love and manly support, and just was like a mountain, just did not move the whole time no matter what happened or what was going on, thank you Teddy. I am glad you are sitting here still, and I am incredibly blessed to have all of you here with me tonight because I know that times are hard, and there is a lot of competition within your own households for the money that you spent to be here this evening, let alone other very worthy charitable causes.
So, I thank you for opening your wallets, and your purses, and getting dressed up and finding baby-sitters for your kids, and making your way from Massachusetts and Brazil and everywhere else, and it is a school night, I know. Thank you all for being here.
And lastly, I am very blessed to have met and gotten to know the wonderful doctor, Linda Griffith. About this time last year when we were doing the Blossom Ball and starting the foundation, I gave an interview to Newsweek magazine where I talked about what happened to me, and how I did not really talk about my illness and I did not really know what it was, and, as a model that was also really difficult because you are traveling a lot and everything. Dr. Griffith read this interview in Newsweek and about the same time she…she is a real genius. I know we say to people, “Like, oh, that’s genius”, or that comedian is a genius, that writer is such a genius, but she is a real genius, like an actual genius. About the time last year when we were all gathered for the first Blossom Ball, I did this interview in Newsweek. She read it and to use her own words: she was inspired.
Dr. Griffith received among many other accolades, which you guys can read about in the program…I was thinking about how I am going to introduce Dr. Griffith and I looked at her bio and I thought, shit, I do not even understand her bio. Honestly, I had to read it several times. It is in the program. You will see what I mean. But of the many accolades that she has received; she also received a MacArthur Genius Grant, and she very generously decided to dedicate herself, and all of her very vast resources, to endometriosis research. You can clap any time, all the time. Dr. Griffith…and you can read about how brilliant she is, she is really brilliant, but more than being really brilliant, she is an extraordinary human being. She is one of the most enthusiastic women I know about contributing to the world she lives in. She is brave, she is fearless, she is tireless. You probably read about her in the paper a few years ago, something about an ear. But, when you have a child that makes you look at the world in a different way. People look at my child and they say: “Oh, she’s so pretty, she’s so tall, you know, she’ll probably be a model like you” and I say: “Yeah, whatever”, I hope that my daughter has half of the humanity and the gumption that Dr. Linda Griffith has.
We all know that Dr. Linda Griffith is a scientist and an educator; a brilliant scientist and a brilliant educator, but what many people do not know is that she is as much a poet of the heart. She has dedicated her life to the advancement of the human being in the truest, most purest way. She read this article and she decided that she was going to dedicate all this money and all her time to opening the first center, interdisciplinary center for Gynepathology in the country at MIT with Harvard. We helped her launch it last December. It is my greatest honor, and extreme pleasure, to honor her this evening, please come up. Dr. Linda Griffith, from MIT.
