{"id":134126,"date":"2024-04-22T19:09:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T19:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=134126"},"modified":"2024-04-22T19:10:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T19:10:05","slug":"ushering-in-the-new-year-in-culturally-meaningful-manner-in-colombo-by-uditha-devapriya-and-pasindu-nimsara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/ushering-in-the-new-year-in-culturally-meaningful-manner-in-colombo-by-uditha-devapriya-and-pasindu-nimsara\/","title":{"rendered":"Ushering in the New Year in Culturally Meaningful Manner in Colombo -by Uditha Devapriya and Pasindu Nimsara"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ushering in the New Year in Culturally Meaningful Manner in Colombo -by Uditha Devapriya and Pasindu Nimsara<\/span><\/h2>\n

Source:<\/span><\/strong>Thuppahis<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

whose preferred title is\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cK\u00e9vum, Kr\u00cfda, and Kad\u00e9: Avurudu in Colombo\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u2026 from The Island,\u00a019 April 2024<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

No Avurudu would be complete without an Avurudu Ulela. It has become part of our national social calendar, an event that must be organised, a tradition that must be kept. Practically every institution, from nurseries to universities to companies to Rotaract Societies, has a shot at holding one. The result is that\u00a0somehow or the other, an Avurudu Ulela unfolds somewhere every other day until the end of April.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In Colombo, and most major cities, Avurudu Ulela, or Festivals, serve a decorative function. They are designed, structured, and \u201cordered\u201d to represent the\u00a0ideal<\/em>\u00a0of Avurudu. In a typical Avurudu Festival, at least the best among them, spectators are made to\u00a0imagine<\/em>\u00a0what Avurudu means, or is supposed to mean.\u00a0Our contention is that such festivals focus on the basic elements of Avurudu, a trinity of sorts:\u00a0k\u00e9vum<\/em>\u00a0(food),\u00a0kr\u00cfda<\/em>\u00a0(games), and\u00a0kad\u00e9<\/em>\u00a0(shops, stalls, and kiosks).\u00a0<\/strong>This is rather simplistic, but it reinforces the point.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christmas is often touted as a time for family. Avurudu, by contrast, is a communal affair, even if consumerism, urbanisation, and the mass media have made it more individualistic and family oriented. In line with this,\u00a0Avurudu Festivals strive to be as communal as they can,\u00a0<\/strong>promoting shared experiences. And yet, the idea of communalism \u2013 in the positive sense, not negative \u2013 has undergone a transformation over the years, particularly in the cities. Today you \u201ctake time off\u201d for an Avurudu Ulela: you take the bus or your vehicle, travel all the way from somewhere or the other to the location. The event itself\u00a0becomes a highly formalised affair,\u00a0<\/strong>resembling a function rather than a festival.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Such transformations are only to be expected in a society that is becoming more specialised and<\/strong>\u00a0specialist<\/em>\u00a0every day.\u00a0These transformations did not begin yesterday. They are part of a broader cultural sea-change. Over the last 25 or so years, there has been a radical shift in the social composition in cities like Colombo, including suburbs. In light of these developments, the very character of Avurudu Festivals has transmogrified.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is true not just of the events we take part at these festivals, or the food we eat, but even what we wear. Ever since\u00a0batiks<\/em>\u00a0took off and became a \u201ccultural industry\u201d here,\u00a0lungis<\/em>\u00a0and<\/strong>\u00a0baniyans<\/em>\u00a0have become highly exoticized things. We wear them and take them off: they enable us to become \u201clocals\u201d, or more specifically, \u201cvillagers.\u201d They are as decorative and ornamental as the masks and sculptures at Laksala and Barefoot.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first glance, of course, this seems a radical way of looking at Avurudu \u2013 specifically, the way it is celebrated and viewed in Colombo. But there is nothing really radical here. In Colombo \u2013 and in cities and even in villages which are fast being swamped by the \u201ccivilising\u201d forces of \u201cmodernity\u201d \u2013 the most traditional events get \u201croutinised.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0In that scheme, the most rudimentary element, including music, gets \u201cscheduled.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Simply put, in a culture where work and leisure have become atomised, these festivals offer a form of leisure that sits in well with the modern sensibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Without idealising or fetishising what life in a typical Sinhala village would have been like hundreds of years ago, it is evident that work and leisure were never compartmentalised as they are today. Rituals were not something to be kept at a distance: they formed a part of everyday, ordinary life. Avurudu marked the end of a harvest season and the beginning of another. The festivals were incidental to this transition: they did not lie away from them. Most of the Avurudu songs performed today celebrate this. But\u00a0in celebrating it, we have\u00a0externalised<\/em>\u00a0it \u2013 or as the purists would have it,\u00a0commercialised<\/em>\u00a0it.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Avurudu is not the only festival that has been ruptured this way: Christmas, even Vesak and Poson, have radically transformed, sometimes beyond recognition. Like Christmas, Avurudu is a \u201cpagan\u201d ritual: it incorporates a mishmash of pre-Buddhist rites which have since been absorbed into Sri Lanka\u2019s uniquely Buddhist ethos. And like every such festival that has been \u201cmodernised\u201d, it has also become a highly exotic affair.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, unlike Christmas, Vesak, and Poson \u2013 which have transformed so much that it is hard to imagine what they looked like before the \u201cforces of modernity\u201d crept in \u2013\u00a0Avurudu gives us a chance to revisit and reimagine the concept of the village, or\u00a0gama<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Every year, hundreds of Avurudu Festivals crop up in Colombo. In almost all of them,\u00a0there is a subconscious attempt to replicate the\u00a0gama<\/em>, mainly through that trinity of rites mentioned before:\u00a0k\u00e9vum<\/em>,\u00a0kr\u00cfda<\/em>, and\u00a0kad\u00e9<\/em>.<\/strong>\u00a0By replicating it, the organisers try to reimagine it, though not always accurately. Thus, more than Christmas, Vesak, and Poson, in an Avurudu Festival one comes across\u00a0a\u00a0fixation<\/em>\u00a0with the Sinhala village.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Such conceptions of that village may be at odds with the historical reality. And more often than not, they are. Yet Avurudu Festivals in Colombo, though following a certain pattern, offer a window to that ideal, a chance to relive it and\u00a0regain<\/em>\u00a0it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In that sense, the most interesting Avurudu Festivals in Colombo would be those organised by villagers. Such festivals would reveal not just how those in the city reconceive the Sinhala\u00a0gama<\/em>, but also, crucially, how Sinhala villagers reconceive the city and refract Colombo\u2019s reimagining of the\u00a0gama<\/em>. While this looks like an oddity, something that simply does not happen, there is one such festival that unfolds every year at the heart of Colombo which is organised by \u201cvillagers\u201d \u2013 and intriguingly, is open to a large crowd.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is\u00a0the Avurudu Ulela organised by the Hostel of Royal College.<\/strong>\u00a0Home to over 300 students, the Hostel has today transformed into what can best be called a nexus between the city and the village. Most of the localities its students hail from come more than 50 kilometres from Colombo. This has enabled a\u00a0transmission<\/em>\u00a0of cultural values, but more importantly, an\u00a0exchange<\/em>\u00a0of those values: from the rural to the urban, and, as crucially, from the urban to the rural. Such transmissions and exchanges are evident in the many events and festivals that these students organise.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Hostel Avurudu is no exception. Unlike most school Avurudu Festivals, the parents don\u2019t get involved in the organising: the students do.<\/strong>\u00a0This enables them to\u00a0structure the event in line with their conceptions of village<\/strong>\u00a0and city. It unfolds in a set pattern, beginning with a customary milk boiling ceremony, moving on to a satirical skit, then segueing into breakfast, games, lunch, and still more games, well into the night. At the centre of it all is a telling titled\u00a0gama gedara<\/em>, which represents the household of an influential villager: a reflection of the social class to which most students \u2013 sons of teachers, public health inspectors, bus owners, and other rural middle-class professionals \u2013 themselves belong.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is interesting is how culturally syncretic the Festival becomes, which puts it a cut above most other festivals organised in Colombo.<\/strong>\u00a0The rural seeps into the urban, but the urban seeps into the rural as well. To give one example, the skit which unfolds at the\u00a0gama gedara<\/em>\u00a0in the morning is dominated by an\u00a0arachchi<\/em>, perhaps the most recognisable rural archetype in Sri Lanka. In popular Sinhala culture, including Sinhala teledramas, the\u00a0arachchi<\/em>\u00a0invariably has a wayward son and a pretty daughter, not to mention a group of servile acolytes. This is reflected in the skit itself. Yet, interestingly enough, and no doubt because of the origins of the organisers, there is an authenticity in the way the actors playing these parts deliver their lines and play out various situations.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Hostel Avurudu is, in that sense, an exception. The function of an Avurudu Festival, at the end of the day, is to bring people together. In Colombo, it has acquired a logic and a character of its own,\u00a0helping us reimagine the Sinhala\u00a0gama<\/em>\u00a0in the most creative, exotic,\u00a0yet \u201corientalist\u201d\u00a0ways possible.<\/strong>\u00a0The Hostel Avurudu strays from this tendency, and presents a view of the\u00a0gama<\/em>\u00a0that is at once urbanised, refined, and much more authentic. We have been to many Festivals, in the village and city. The Royal College Hostel Avurudu represents something of a synthesis. At one level, it is an interesting study for scholars.<\/span><\/p>\n

*************<\/span><\/p>\n

Uditha Devapriya<\/strong>\u00a0is a writer, researcher, and analyst based in Sri Lanka who contributes to a number of publications on topics such as history, art and culture, politics, and foreign policy. He can be reached at\u00a0<\/em>udakdev1@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Pasindu Nimsaa<\/strong>\u00a0was the Deputy Head Prefect of the Royal College Hostel in 2022. He is now preparing for his higher studies. An ardent reader of anthropology, he hopes to study and pursue the subject. He can be reached at\u00a0<\/em>pasinim19@gmail.com<\/span><\/em><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Click here to receive your free copy of the eLanka Newsletter twice a week delivered directly\u00a0to\u00a0your\u00a0inbox!<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ushering in the New Year in Culturally Meaningful Manner in Colombo -by Uditha Devapriya and Pasindu Nimsara Source:Thuppahis whose preferred title is\u00a0\u201cK\u00e9vum, Kr\u00cfda, and Kad\u00e9: Avurudu in Colombo\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u2026 from The Island,\u00a019 April 2024 No Avurudu would be complete without an Avurudu Ulela. It has become part of our national social calendar, an event that must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":133385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[63906,63903,637,63905,63904],"class_list":{"0":"post-134126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-aside","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-articles","8":"tag-avurudu-festivals","9":"tag-avurudu-ulela","10":"tag-royal-college","11":"tag-sinhala-gama","12":"tag-the-hostel-avurudu","13":"post_format-post-format-aside"},"yoast_head":"\nUshering in the New Year in Culturally Meaningful Manner in Colombo -by Uditha Devapriya and Pasindu Nimsara<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"No Avurudu would be complete without an Avurudu Ulela. 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