"I am Tamil, I am Sinhalese, I am Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. But above all, today and always, I will be proudly Sri Lankan." – Kumar Sangakkara

Date: April 14th, 2017

Occasion:
The Sinhala and Tamil New Year
Varusha Pirappu
Avurudu
Vishu

Country: Sri Lanka

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III | Much Ado About Mopping

You never truly admire the art of staring at a mop for hours on end, until you have to do something productive with said mop.

I forcefully bit down on my cheek as my toe, which happened to meet the quick edge of a mahogany table at that exact moment, managed to stub itself. I hissed a curse under my breath at the immediate pain, hopping around as though movement would alleviate my toe's resemblance to a fuchsia pufferfish. Minus the spikes, thankfully.

However, doing that was as useless as Hawkeye was in the first Avengers film. Not a great comparison, I know, considering how much he redeemed himself in the sequel. But as a sharp flare of pain shot through my foot with the speed of a bullet, thinking through the burn became a feat too difficult.

As I gave up on the whole ridiculous hopping activity and flopped down onto a pristine cream sofa, my brother made his appearance out of nowhere, as though he'd suddenly apparated into existence. His sudden approach made me flinch violently at first sight, before I sank back into the silvery cushions once registering the fact he was thankfully not my father.

The stern look on my father's face this not-so-cheery morning had been enough to spur our motivation to clean, clean, clean! until now. A time lapse of sixty minutes had flown by in the shape of numerous dustpans and roaring vacuums. I was sure that the next time I coughed, I would be expelling a thick cloud of dust in place of carbon dioxide.

"You look tired," Ishara, my aforementioned twin brother, commented bluntly.

The vacuum he was dragging was currently exhausting tiny puffs of grey dust, as though it, in conjunction to my own feelings, was not feeling the love for the Sinhala New Year. Oh right, and Tamil's I guess, but I occasionally forgot about them sometimes. What? Yeah, I had a pretty bad memory, but at least I remembered to do my math homework the last time I–

Oh crap, never mind.

Reverting back to the present, I shot an exasperated look at my brother. He'd always had this irritating knack of stating the obvious, much to my utter chagrin, since it was hella annoying 100 percent of the time. 

"Nǣ, bohoma? I thought I'd be bouncing off the walls in happiness," I retorted sardonically. "Cleaning is just too much fun!"

I emphasised the sarcasm with dramatic hand gestures, whacking the vase that wobbled dangerously beside me. Eyes widening, I quickly steadied it before it could plunge to the ground and shatter into a gazillion pieces. I was sure that mom wouldn't be in a spectacular mood if I broke her favorite vase. And you gotta keep those parental figures happy over New Year's, you know?

"All right, all right, no need to be catty," Ishara retorted, one hand raised up in surrender as he tugged the vacuum elsewhere with the other.

"Hey, who're you calling catty?" I called out, surprised that I could somehow muster the effort to say anything humorously through the slow burn of my throbbing toe.

"You, clearly," his voice was barely audible over the roar of the vacuum cleaner. It was stuttering dangerously, and probably clogged up by all the junk sucked into its vortex.

I rolled my eyes. "Not funny!"

"If you're talking about yourself, then yeah, you're right!" came his snarky reply as he moved out of sight to an area I couldn't be bothered walking to. Smart boy, because in that moment, I was seriously itching to close my fingers around his throat.

Aside from our identical shades of golden caramel skin tone and matching sets of walnut coloured irises, my brother and I couldn't be more different. His interests geared more towards vehicles and engineering, while my interests veered in the exact opposite direction. Precisely, the art of flopping down on my bed and sleeping until the end of time, which unfortunately did not merge well with the torture of housework.

"Did I ever tell you how irritating you are?" I shouted in a further attempt to faze my brother, though it always seemed as though he was just immune to my teasing and ridicule.

"Only around ten billion times per minute!" he called back.

"That's it!" I snarled with the ferocity of a stuffed animal. "Come here, you stupid ballige putha, you are so dead!"

Bouncing off my comfy spot on the couch, I launched myself towards the kitchen and found my brother, who'd already started running from the sound of my ominous words. As he stealthily dodged antique objects and narrowly missed corners of tables, he had the nerve to yell as he sprinted, "You know you called your own mother the b-word, right?!"

"You're the worst!" I shouted, grabbing the nearest object – a soot-covered tea towel, and flinging it at him. Unfortunately, because physics is lame, all it did was travel a centimetre crumpling on the ground.

"No, you!" he shot back, nearly tripping over the screeching vacuum he had left to fend for itself.

'Theworstpersonsayswhat?" I blurted out in a single breath.

He frowned. "What?"

"Aha!" Triumphant that I had gotten the upper hand, I didn't notice myself barreling straight into something much taller than me, quite solid, and vaguely human.

With a sense of dread, I raised my head. My gaze made contact with the deep brown eyes of my father, who held the dreaded mop in his left hand as though it was a trident. His eyebrow quirked up in one smooth movement. In that moment, I knew to which degree I was screwed, and that degree was hella. Meanwhile, Ishara had skidded to a clumsy halt, his expression a vision of horror.

Our father heaved a deep sigh. "All that energy and you're channeling it into bickering with each other. While I figure out your punishment for slacking off, I'd like you two to get reacquainted with the cleaning supplies." He shoved the mop into my hands.

Apparently, both my brother and I were sharing the exact same guilty feeling, because his facial expression mirrored mine exactly. It was rare to see both of us on the same page, but I guess the New Year could bring out a new us. Either way, it might have been due to the twin telepathy people were always going on about, but there was one word, and one word only, resonating through our minds.

Shit.

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Between the joys of endless housework, parents popping up like jack-in-the-boxes in the exact moments I was just taking a break, and military precision scheduling, food was the only thing that kept me going- and boy, was there going to be a helluva lot of food piled high on a groaning table soon.

Oh wait, I haven't even explained what the damn thing is, have I? I told you I had a bad memory. Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a lesson, so let's just go over the basics. In a nutshell, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year is treated like the Gregorian New Year, but with a distinct lack of explosive fireworks, chanting, and midnight smooches with that cute guy or girl you'd been crushing on for yonks.

In fact, you were greeted with pretty much the exact opposite. A mop shoved into your unwilling hands and a helluva lot of cleaning that you don't even get paid for, check. A crap ton of food, check. Random family members you neither know nor care much about, giving you cash, check. Wow, this is really starting to sound like Chinese New Year, isn't it?

But these traditions are done differently in both Sinhala and Tamil, so I guess I'll only be explaining the environment that I've actually had experience being in. As for Tamil, well, you always have Google to save your butts, right? I'm trying to be nice and suggest options here, but really, I just want to get to the food.

"It's been sixteen years, and I still can't believe that this is an actual tradition," I whispered out of the corner of my mouth. My eyelids drooped shut, before being jerked awake again by a loud gasp of wonder emitted from the parental group which I didn't care to be a part of.

Ishara, who looked equally drowsy, had to be nudged awake by me. His eyelids flew open. "Wha–? What's going on? The hell is–?"

"Wake up!" I reprimanded him.

Identical irises meeting my disdained look, he seemed to deflate like a balloon, yawning. "Jeez Priya. I'm going back to sleep."

Eyes widening, I quickly jabbed a viper quick poke at his left rib. A shout of pain rebounded off the palm of my hand, which I had slapped over his mouth in order not to disturb the other members of our family.

"What if dad notices you sleeping?" I hissed vehemently. "If he catches you, we're both screwed!"

"You mean the guy who's currently worshipping the Holy Pot of Boiling Milk?" he snorted, gesturing to our father's wondrous expression, which closely resembled someone who'd just received an A on their test without studying. "I doubt he'd notice if I dumped it over his head."

Couldn't argue with that one. "Just stay awake, will you?" I sighed defeatedly.

"No promises," Ishara murmured sleepily, eyelids already being dragged down by the irresistible force of sleepiness.

So yep, there's the pot of boiling milk story for you. I think it signifies prosperity or something like that. We could have cooked this traditional meal called Kiribath instead, actually, but my family insisted to travel down the path of using the dairy industry to our advantage. Yeah, I know we haven't gotten to the food yet, but I'm taking my time, okay? Sheesh.

Come the legitimate New Year, we find tables and tables, utterly straining to hold up the weight of numerous dishes, each piled high of Sri Lanka's traditional delicacies. I mean, we have to get past the whole lighting the hearth, the rhythm of rabana, which is pretty much just a massive drum, and watching milk boil in a pot parts first. After that, comes the first meal at the Avurudu table.

Plates and plates of decadent foods such as kiribath, aggala, kavum, thalaguli, you get the point. You don't have to know what they are, just that they're delicious. After all, isn't that the highest expectation of edible goods?

"I keep forgetting that I have this dilemma every damn year," Ishara remarked, mouth gaping at the glorious feast before us.

"What dilemma?" My words weren't directed at him, but at the food, because food was much more of a priority over my brother.

Was that mean? Maybe. But being hungry makes you think strange things and do peculiar deeds, okay? Don't say that that's never happened to you, because you're lying.

"The dilemma of choosing what to eat first," my brother replied in wonder.

Grabbing aggala, which were these delectable sweet and spicy rice balls that were seriously to die for, I offered one to Ishara with a quirk of my lips. "Shall we see how many of these we can fit into our mouths?"

His confused expression grew into a grin as he accepted the rice ball. "Well, you know I love a challenge."

Five minutes later, the clear winner had been decided. Ishara was currently sitting with a childish pout and arms folded while I paraded around the table, obnoxiously yelling, "I won, you lost, your pride has now been cost! You're lame, you've been tricked, because you're such a stupid–"

"Enough, Priya, stop being so immature," Dad interrupted before I could finish my glorious chant. His usual stern look had now returned, fixating its wrath at me.

"Sorry about it," I muttered under my breath. I retreated to my seat, irritated at my high definition viewing of Ishara's triumphant smirk.

Mom laid a hand gently on dad's forearm. The latter softened like butter at room temperature. "Come on now, Ashan, leave them be."

"Yeah, leave me be!" Ishara and I exclaimed in unison, shooting the other an icy glare.

"You two included," she nodded at the two of us, whose expressions were now the epitome of sheepish. "Can you try and get along for one day?"

"No promises," I mocked Ishara, who pulled me into a headlock as I spluttered and choked.

So yeah, that was that. Afterwards came more fancy rituals, exchange of money, anointing oil, and some brutal tug of war games, The Sinhala and Tamil New Year had pretty much reached the end of its festive reign. I guess that's where my sappy conclusion should start.

I'll start off by saying that it was short, a helluva lot shorter than I expected. If time lapse was actually a thing in reality, my family would have been the guinea pigs in the ten thousandth or so Doctor Who's experiment. Either way, New Year's was extravagant, it was hectic and stressful, but as much as I didn't want to admit it, it was all totally worth it. It was beautiful, how we treated this celebration with such light brushes of affection.

This whole extravaganza was family-oriented. And even though they annoy the shit out of me, Ishara, mom and dad, were what made this New Year's special. Oh God, tears are going to drip onto this page and ruin this ink if I don't shut up and end this damn diary entry.

So all in all, Sri Lanka's 2017 New Year was one to be remembered for years to come. Memories with my family, they'd be the ones etched into the storybook of my forever wandering mind.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.