April New Year Celebration

1. 14.04.2016

4.  The Tamil New Year follows the vernal equinox and
generally falls on 14 April of the Gregorian year.
 14 April marks the first day of the traditional Tamil
calendar and is a public holiday in both Tamil Nadu and
Sri Lanka.
 This is the month of April, the first month of the Tamil
solar calendar.
 On the eve of April New Year, a tray arranged with three
fruits (mango ,banana and jack fruit), betel leaves and
arcane, gold/silver jewelers, coins/money, flowers and a
mirror is placed.
 Usually before the New Year, people stop all the work
and prepare for the New Year.

5.  They try to make everything new for the next year like
cleaning homes, buying new clothes, repairing things etc.
 Auspicious time and Astrology play a big role for the
celebrations and the New Year starts for a given
auspicious time by the Astrologers.
 The exciting part is that all the people who celebrate this
New Year stop their work by a given time.
 As majority of people celebrate New Year, you’ll find
suddenly the country is silent.
 Usually shops are closed and even no much vehicles in
the roads.

10.  Even there is no cooking during this period of Old year and New Year.
 Then, when the auspicious time comes for the New Year, we start
work by lighting the hearth and boiling milk.
 If you visit Sri Lanka during this New Year period, you’ll hear sounds
of lot of fire crackers which indicates that people started the
celebrations.
 Usually we prepare a fireplace in mid of the living room and boil milk.
 If not, we even use the existing fireplace in the kitchen.
 Nowadays most of the homes use gas cookers for cooking purpose.
But still most Sri Lankans prepare a traditional fireplace(hearth) for
the purpose of boiling milk.
 If the milk is boiled and overflows, it is a symbol of prosperity and all
are happy. We all stay around the hearth adding dry sticks to continue
the fire and wait for the time of overflowing milk.

12.  After boiling milk, (either coconut milk or fresh milk of cow) then it is time
to cook Milk Rice. Milk rice is a ceremonial dish in Sri Lanka which rice is
cooked with coconut milk. Even the New Year starts with cooking Kiri
bath and eating together the whole family.
 Basically this celebration is related with new harvest and idea is family
reunion. After celebrations at home, we usually visit our parents,
grandparents or other relatives. Traditional food plays a big role during
this period and we eat different sweets from different places including
relatives until we fed up.
 Some of the most popular sweets during this period are Konda Kavum,
Kokis,Aluwa and Dodol.
 Other than these sweets, we also prepare a pickle with onion and green
chili.

21.  As I shared in my other blog, In Sri Lanka we celebrate
New Year in April. After the traditional things we do at an
auspicious time, it is time to celebrate.
 Among other customs and traditions, we also celebrate the
New Year with traditional games.
 These games are full of fun and simple. During the April
and after the New Year (that is after around 13th,14th April)
there are lot of such festivals around country.
 As for the most of such festivals, this New Year festival also
started from the ‘Marathon’.
 Usually this includes competitors to complete a track which
usually covers the residential area where the games
festival is organized.
 At least 2-3 km is included for the runners to complete.

23.  Kana mutti bindeema is another fun game which is like a
must in any New year games festival.
 Usually for this game, there are few clay pots which are
filled with sand or water and hanged in a row.
 Among these pots there is one pot which is filled with
blue water.
 Completion is to hit the clay pot which has blue water.
 To start the game, the eyes of the competitors are closed
using a piece of cloth.
 They are provided with a bamboo stick to hit the pot.
 The competitor who hit the pot which contains blue
water will win the game.
 Even if there is a winner or no,this game is a fun event
for all those who participate for the festival.

25.  Another game is Kotta pora which means pillow
fight.It is basically, two competitors fight with a pillow
till one person is fallen down.
 Usually a place is prepared using a pole placed
horizontally at about 2 m in height.
 This can be placed in other vertically placed
poles/columns.
 Then 2 competitors sit on both sides and beat each
other using a bag (pillow) full of straw or some light
weight things.
 This will continue until one falls off.

27.  Climbing the slippery pole (Lissana gaha nageema) is another
game.
 For this game, a very long timber pole is fixed into the ground.
 A flag is placed at the top of the pole.(tree)
 Then the organizers will apply some slippery thing like grease on
this pole.
 The first person who climbs to the top of this slippery tree and
who gets the flag is the winner.
 However, this game is played as a team.
 Those who participate for the game will repeat their attempt and
remove the grease on each attempt.
 Finally one person will be able to get the flag.
 Usually the price is a good amount of money and the winner will
share it among all those who participated in the team.

43.  The mythological backdrop of the New Year is probably based
on Hindu literature.
 The Prince of Peace called Indradeva descends upon the earth
to ensure peace and happiness.
 He comes in a white carriage wearing on his head a white floral
crown seven cubits high.
 He first dips, like a returning space capsule plunges, breaking
earth's gravity, into a `Kiri Sayura' or sea of milk.
 Modern day activities related to the celebration of the traditional
New Year is based on auspicious times given by
the astrologers.
 The New Year celebration therefore can be thought as a
complex mix of Indigenous, Astrological, Hindu,
and Buddhist traditions.