No Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations this year

Traditional New Year celebrations involve ritual meals early in the morning, but long lines are needed to get increasingly expensive basic items. Grassroots movements are demanding the government quit.

Colombo (AsiaNews) – Due to the country’s economic crisis, Sri Lanka’s New Year, which falls today, will be different this year.

Called Aluth Avurudda in Sinhala and Puthandu in Tamil, New Year Day is a statutory holiday. Everyone in the country celebrates wearing light golden clothes and turn towards the east.

The rituals include milk rice mixed with curd as well as sweetmeats with undu flour at specific propitious times of the morning.

However, this time most people have been unable to mark the coming of the new year because of shortages of basic items like flour, milk and gas. People are forced to stand in long queues for hours, sometimes days.

“We cannot use the wood stove, so I stood in line for two days to get a gas bottle to cook for the New Year,” said Chandraletha Somaweera, a Buddhist woman in Colombo, speaking to AsiaNews.

“We don't want to celebrate this year. Our political leaders promised us prosperity and this is their gift,” noted Shelton Fernando, a tuk-tuk (auto rickshaw) driver from the Ja-Ela area. “To have a day’s worth of fuel to work I have to stand in line for three. What new year can this be for us?"

Indrani Victor, a Tamil Catholic pottery vendor usually sells out for New Year's celebrations. This year, she told AsiaNews, she sold only seven pots. “Usually three of us work; this year it's just me.”

Other merchants are in the same situation. According to some vendors in the city of Kandana, “People have no money, they eat one meal a day, and there is nothing for children because milk powder is very expensive.”

In their view, “Politicians have completely ruined our peaceful lives and are still trying to keep power.”

Since last Sunday, a crowd has stood in protest across from the office of the Presidential Secretariat in the capital.

Young and old, men and women, regardless of ethnicity, religion or social class, people are calling on the government to quit, including the president and prime minister.

Young people have rejected Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's call for talks. “No discussion. Step Down!” they said. “You are trying to engage with the wrong group this time.”

• sri lanka
• new year
• sinhala
• tamil
• economic crisis
• shortages
• protests
• poverty