Significance of New Year; Indian PM’s visit; Boomerang!

Even if you are old and grey and want to forget the usual niceties of life, you simply cannot push the Sinhala and Tamil Aluth Avurudda out of your ken but need to reckon with it.

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The koha cries incessantly; old retainers come to mind; streets are crowded with jostling shoppers; TV has plenty of clips, both advertising and informing of villages preparing for the national festival. And, of course, irresistible are the pull of cultural customs and age old rituals. So, you, too, buy gifts, prepare sweets or buy them, light the hearth at the correct time, have your first meal for the New Year astrologically as prescribed, and wish for the best.

April New Year is ...

To Cassandra, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year are a very strong nod to national pride and our cultural heritage. It is essentially a thanksgiving to Nature — sun, rain, the earth, devas too - for the Maha crop of paddy has been harvested and stored. But man cannot live by rice alone. That’s sustenance for the body. The mind/brain and psyche too have to be nurtured and thus a holiday to R&R and celebrate; to firm family relationships, nurture togetherness since man is a social creature; cater to appetites with richer victuals and of course that which cheers for some; and fun and games for child and adult alike.

This year we remember that we, as a nation, are not out of the woods of economic difficulty, but there is hope, there definitely is. After years of mismanagement a great change is taking place, mostly because those who govern us are concerned about the country and its people and work for our betterment, not for their individual enrichment or rise in power.

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