Happy New Year

Mid-April is New Year in Sri Lanka. They do like to be different. Both the Tamils and the Sinhalese share the celebrations, the ritualistic nature of which I struggle to get my head around. Something to do with the sun, moon, planets and horoscopes and with precise auspicious and inauspicious times. The practical effect is that the country more or less shuts down for a week, and a powerful lot of firecrackers are set off. It’s a very good time to leave the country, as I remind myself every year and promptly forget the next year.

As far as I am aware (which is not very far) Sri Lankans don’t allocate either numbers to their years (as in the west and Islam) or a cycle of names (as in China). I’ve never heard anyone refer to their birth year as anything other than the standard calendar. Though they are absolute slaves to their horoscopes as I’ve noted elsewhere. Romantic love counts as nothing if it is trumped by an inauspicious combination of star signs, and people delay moving house for a month in order to wait for the auspicious moment, whatever the practical and financial consequences.

I thought I would record in full for your amusement the schedule printed in last Sunday’s Sunday Observer – a reputable, almost dowdy organ which nonetheless appears to take all the mumbo-jumbo entirely seriously. Under a drawing of a sun with a grim-looking face is this column:

AUSPICIOUS TIMES

The inauspicious period

From 7.45am to 8.33pm today. All work should cease before 7.45am, and one should engage in religious activities.

Cooking meals

At 2.42pm light the hearth clad in yellow and red (bronze) facing the East. [It does not specify whether it is the hearth or the people that should be clad in yellow and red and face east]

Commencing work, transactions and partaking of meals

Today, April 14^th at 3.54pm clad in yellow and red (bronze) facing the East.

Anointing with oil

April 17^th at 7.40am, clad in green facing the East. [Does the type of oil matter? Brent crude? Three-in-one? Extra virgin?]

Leaving for work

April 18^th at 4.52am, clad in green facing the East.

The more alert among you will have noticed that this schedule might prove problematic. Having no-one doing work of any kind from 7.45am to 8.33pm, albeit on a Sunday, might just bring the country’s infrastructure to its knees. Any food eaten must be cooked just so between 2.42pm and 3.54pm or there could be consequences in terms of food poisoning or just really tough chicken thighs and burnt vegetables. And woe betide those folk who live to the east of their workplace as they have to travel to work facing backwards. Bad enough if one walks but potentially disastrous if one drives. And if the posture is required to continue once one reaches one’s place of work – well, I think I might avoid taking a westbound bus on the 18^th. Though I do intend to be up early to watch our staff turn up at sparrow’s fart clothed all in green-oh.

 

More from the wacky world of tuk-tuks

The Kandy Tuk-Tuk Philosophers’ Club seems to have been turning its attention to matters of fatherhood recently. These three were spotted during the same week:

IF YOU ARE DEAD I AM DAD

NO RACE DAD CASE

IF YOUR BAD I AM IN YOUR DAD

Plus a contender for the “Spot the Missing Words Round” of some quiz or other:

I CAN’T THINKING YOUR KISS

And a couple of signs on buildings in the city. One institution scarily advertises its function as “Predatory Mite Breeding Centre”. I think the authorities should take note and close it down forthwith. And another building boasts a plaque commemorating “Centenary of Excise Department 1913 – 2012” – I assume they deducted 1% for duties.