The koha has been tweeting his sweet head off heralding the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. Now this last is a new one on me. We used to say Sinhala and Hindu New Year but fortuitously before writing this, I checked in a calendar and diary and lo and behold the Hindu of long ago has been changed to Tamil. No matter which name is used, since I am dealing with the customs the Sinhalese follow and how they’ve changed from then to now.

The April New Year being essentially a family celebration and enjoyed most in villages, my remembering mind slips back to new years I spent in the village home of my grand-parents. And what is recalled most vividly is the rope swing strung on the branch of the sturdy mango tree and my brother and cousins limiting each one’s ride to three minutes, the time counted out loud in seconds – 1, 2, 3 and so on. When one’s turn came it was up and away with the count going on till a shout announced one’s time was up.

Another remembered memory still evokes a broad grin if not a giggle. The jambu tree in the grandparental midula was a mass of shining red among the green. We were all gathered under it because Ran Banda, the young swaggering swain of the village had said he’d pick the fruit for us. It was a fairly tall tree and so we could not get the fruit ourselves, my brother forbidden to climb it. We waited with drooly tongues lolling when a sudden crash sent a branch descending. There were two more descents: Ranbanda came tumbling out to streak out of sight, his bare brown legs pounding and then the muffled cries of my sister –enveloped and entangled in the descended sarong. It was not the time for bathing but she rushed to the well to wash off all traces of the village yokel. If I remember right the sarong was not claimed, the owner not coming anywhere near the mahagedera.

And thus the reminiscing and realizing how different New Year now is.

The first preparation is spring cleaning the house. Time was when the floor was sploshed anew with watered clay or cow dung. New pots were bought. Were the old ones deliciously dashed by the entire family? To us now, paints are so pricey and masons so dicey and hard to come by that we overlook the house painting ritual. Pots we do not buy since saucepans and Teflon pans have replaced the healthy earthenware cooking vessel.

New clothes are mandatory and so also gifts to family members, the gifts being clothes or cloth and cash. Easy since clothes are one commodity that is comparatively cheap in this land of ours. The blue- grey shopping bag of The House of Fashion turns ubiquitous these days. Mercifully many institutions and business enterprises give their bonuses in April. With the global economic meltdown and money getting tighter in Sri Lanka though rosy pictures are fed us by the Central Bank, we wonder about cutbacks in the bonuses this year. The Burghers had the habit of starving themselves but dressing to the nines, and all Sri Lankans are now imitators.

An exodus occurs and the big cities subside – less traffic and no hassle. The heat in Colombo sears you but you cannot afford R&R in Nuwara Eliya nor have a mul gedera to go to, so you make do in a quiescent metropolis. Village goers have to contend with long queues, crushed travel, pickpockets and perchance a suicide bomber.

On the last day of the old year, the hearth has to be cleaned and put out of commission. Long ago homes really did this with their open fireplaces at floor level or raised on a platform. The nonagathe period, as I remember it, was protracted from dawn to almost dusk. A temporary fireplace of three bricks was made in the garden and milk boiled for kids and water for tea for elders. No meal was cooked and no meal was brought in, there being next to no restaurants then. You gorged on sweets – kavun, dodol, unduvel, aluwa and spent the day comatose in a treacle and oil induced stupor.

What’s it like now? The gas stove or electric cooker is switched off. The day passes like any other with main meals taken from the fridge and microwaved or brought in from the closest restaurant or buth kade.

Nonagathe is also punya kale when temples have to be visited. The trek to the temple was a final farewell to the year that was ending with the sun changing its position vis-à-vis the planets. Today, the less affluent visit temples. Those creature-comforted with the somnolence of a heavy meal, a couple of drinks and nothing to do - sloth bears of the day - spend the nonagathe supine in an armchair or prostrate in bed.

Lighting of the hearth at the auspicious time was of paramount importance long ago. The time was observed vigilantly, new clothes of the prescribed colour worn and at the exact auspicious time, a match would be struck and the fire in the clean hearth set alight with twigs and dried pol kola to ensure instant igniting. Nowadays one stands before the gas or electric cooker and when crackers din the neighbourhood, a burner is turned on. Milk is not boiled since its overflow would spoil the gas or electric ring. Milk rice is cooked and if the woman of the house prevails, the first meal is eaten at the auspicious time. Earlier there was the festive table with a lit pahana in the centre and the kiributh dish surrounded by traditional sweets and a comb of huge kolikuttu. Many of our men consent to a ceremonial first meal if it coincides with a meal time. Otherwise it’s "You and the kids do the needful; I’ll eat later once this drink is over."

Ganu denu saw my mother wend her way to Suppiah Pillai’s in Kandy to present a silver coin concealed in a betel leaf. There must have been telepathy between the two transactors: Mother came away satisfied she had got the better of the bargain, and the verti clad proprietor glad he’d given only a mite more. The year would be prosperous, Mother intoned. This ritual is now ignored by the sophisticate; the hoi polloi go to banks and get richer by a rupee or two.

Games were a ritual, so also now, but of entirely different kinds. The women sat indoors demurely and cast panchi bello or olinda kellenawa-ed. Others sat round a fired rabana and exercised their wrists and fingers. The men built katuru onchillawas in the kamatha - now bare of straw in April after the Maha harvest was gathered and the paddy stored. These flimsily constructed Ferris wheels of coir rope and arecanut palm strips never were known to throw a rider off his perch. Chuck goodu was played; pillow fights caused hilarity and gambling for small stakes kept the men busy. They held their toddy, though one did see a red eyed swayer occasionally. Teetotalism was more the order of the day, at least in my extended family, barring a couple of uncles who did imbibe, but were none the worse for it. Now it’s the order of the day to store bottles of amber for the prolonged holiday. Tennis courts are full; swimming pools ditto. DVDs are stacked for home entertainment and clubs well patronized of an evening, with a spot of gambling thrown in for the really well heeled, in the exclusive casinos marked ‘Foreigners only’.

We observed strictly the last bath for the old year and the anointing of special oil under a canopy of prescribed leaves and the first bath for the new year a couple of days later. It ensured good health, we were assured, the abstinence from bathing until told to by the astrologer and the ritual oil anointing. Most disregard this ritual now in the 21st century, unless back in a village, where traditions are as yet de rigueur.

Setting out to work is the final auspiciously prescribed act. The majority of us Sinhalese seem to observe this ritual to the letter. Thus offices are empty for a whole lot of days after New Year proper; buses do not run; the city collapses on its empty shell.

That’s the Sinhala spirit – lotus eating for as long as possible! That custom is still observed.