Peace and harmony

By Lakmal Welabada

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Sinhala and Hindu New Year dawns today. Amidst the preparations for the auspicious event you may be having a load of aspirations for the coming new year. Here are some thoughts on the year just begun.

Amara Hewa Madduma, former Senior Government Administrative Officer - Our society still values the age old customs as they help to re-unite the extended family unit at least once a year.

During the Sinhala and Hindu New Year, the wife of the house takes the lead. She does the cleaning, selecting presents and making sweetmeats and so on. This is a special feature during this period. After stagnating with a busy or monotonous day to day routine, the dawn of the new year brings a novel change to life.

Emeritus Professor Kusuma Karunaratne of the University of Colombo - The New Year customs have been handed over to us by our ancestors and elders. Societies change rapidly.

Some of the traditions we’ve practised sometime back (when we were young) could not be easily followed in the present society, as we are not living in the rural background where we used to cultivate paddy and get the harvest and celebrate with the family, neighbours, relatives and all the others in the village.

Great importance is given to practising these customs and traditions as they form uniformity and identity of our own culture which we can boast about. So, it’s our duty to pass these to the next generation as well.

Shantha Mayadunne, Cookery Expert - We should practise the traditions not merely because we have to follow them, but in a really meaningful way.

Worshipping by offering a sheaf of betel to one’s parents is a symbol of paying respect to them. And along with this we should be able to inculcate the value of following good norms as just bending before an adult mechanically is not what we intend through these traditional customs.

The New Year provides a great opportunity to us to educate our children to follow these customs. So, do not waste this opportunity which dawns once a year, and get the maximum out of it.

Bandarawela Amithananda Thera- Since it’s the time when the harvest is reaped and brought home, everybody seems to be happy. In Europe this period of time is known as the Summer.

As a New Year message, I would like to stress on the value of living in peace and harmony. If you can cultivate inner peace within you, then you can pass it to others as well. Hatred and jealousy play a disastrous role in society.

So, if people individually can diminish such adverse feelings and pessimistic attitudes, this world would become a beautiful place. The rituals and traditions practised in the Sinhala and Hindu New Year are ideal customs which we can opportunistically use to eradicate the hiccups in relationships.

Hasantha Hettiarachchi, Manager-Programme Promotions of the Independent Television Network (ITN) - Though we call Sinhala and Hindu New Year a festival, there’s a deep meaning inculcated in it, as during this season inter-relationships occur in two ways; among humans as well as between humans and mother nature.

I have not been at home during the `Nekatha’ (auspicious time) for the past 17 years as I was either abroad or with `Soorya Mangallaya’, a special Avurudu programme telecast by ITN.

But this was never a problem as my parents could see me over the TV, as if it is me just at home with them. This time we’ll be telecasting this programme from Kumburugamuwa at Matara and Horana”.