A National New Year
Daya DISSANAYAKE
On April 14 we are once again celebrating a Sinhala and Tamil New
Year. As usual we begin our new year preparations well ahead of the
date.
New Year is said to be the first day of the year in the calendar used
in the country. The Gregorian or the Christian calendar has been
accepted internationally, since 1852. This is a development of the
ancient solar calendar, which was probably begun by the Egyptians,
“using as a fixed point the annual sunrise reappearance of the ‘Dog
Star’ - Sirius, or Sothis - in the eastern sky, which coincided with the
annual flooding of the Nile river” (Encyclopaedia Britannica). For the
solar calendar of 365 days (1 day added to a leap year), the position of
the earth in its orbit around the sun is reckoned with respect to the
equinox, the point at which the orbit crosses the celestial equator. The
Hindu, Tamil and the Thai calendars also follow this system.
However there are over 40 types of calendars around the world. The
Lunar calendar is based on the natural cycles of the moon. The Lunisolar
calendar tracks both the sun and the moon, but tracks the seasonal cycle
more closely. The Solilunar calendar tracks more the moon cycle than the
seasons. There are also calendars based on astronomical observations and
astronomical calculations.
China uses the Gregorian calendar for business and international
dealings, while they use a Chinese calendar for determining their
festivals, based on astronomical observations of the sun and the phases
of the moon.
In India there were about 30 different calendar systems, till a
National calendar was adapted in 1957 based on the Saka Era, but for all
business and administrative purposes the Gregorian calendar is used.
In our country too, we follow the Gregorian calendar for official
work, the Buddhist calendar for all Buddhist festivals and the Indian
Lunisolar calendar to reckon the New Year date and times.
Harvest festival
The New Year festival and all the cultural and religious observations
during this period were based on our agri-cultural society, as a harvest
festival.
Today very few of our people live by cultivating their own paddy
fields, and even if they do, the farming seasons have changed, the
traditions and technology has changed, and they have come to depend more
on agro-chemicals and scientific advise than on our ancient farming
techniques. For the majority of the population in our country who are
monthly or daily wage owners, a New Year based on Agri-culture does not
make sense.
The New Year, all over the world used to be a cultural festival,
which probably began as Homo sapiens gradually turned to farming from
his previous stage of gathering and occasional hunting.
It may have been much earlier in countries where they faced a winter
and then the new dawn of spring, when everything came back to life
again.
Man had very good reasons to celebrate a New Year then, either
because of the rebirth of plant life around them, and the rebirth of
their gods. This was also the time of the gathering of their harvest,
the offering of First Fruits to their gods.
It was a time of prosperity, a time when they were happy and
contended and had a good reason for celebrations and share their
happiness with everyone.
Relevance
Today the time has come to rethink of the new year celebrations as we
know it. One argument is that it is already redundant. Something that
belongs to a museum. Because in the towns and cities there is no harvest
festival. Where most people live on monthly or daily wages there is no
special month or day when they get a special large income, or a reason
for celebration which is common to all the people at once.
In our villages too, harvesting times have changed, due to the
climate changes and because of the new varieties of crops used with
their varying crop cycles. Farmers too are completely dependent on
business men or the Government who purchase their harvest.
The people today, do not have a substantial income before the New
Year, nor do they have the time and peace of mind to relax for a few
days and observe all the traditional New Year festivities.
The traditional festivities and all activities today have been taken
over by commercial interests, unlike when people celebrated the new year
in the calm and quite of their own villages, among their own families.
Everything is worked out in rupees and cents and profit margins and
interest rates.
Today in the city we are all strangers, with many barriers and
partitions built between us. Even in the new high-rise apartments or in
the suburbs, we do not know our neighbours. We are not concerned. We
prefer to mind our own business.
Since most of us still want to have a New Year, of our own, to
celebrate and enjoy, perhaps it is time to think of a National New Year,
which can include all the people of our country, irrespective of their
race, caste or creed. We could make this a ‘heaven sent’ opportunity to
bring down all the barriers and partitions we ourselves have built
around us.
One family
A National New Year could bring us all together into one family, in
our villages, where today there are strangers, migrants from other
villages, regions and districts, and there are also our own kith and kin
who too had become strangers, drifted further apart than the strangers
themselves.
When we can bring this unity into the villages, then it would come
into the towns and to the city.
Let us adapt all the kind, beneficial, environment-friendly customs
and rituals and games from all the different cultures and develop New
Year festivities which are more practical, more sensible, more enjoyable
and more affordable to all of us, the children, the youth and the
elderly.
Unless we adapt our cultural festivals to modern times, they get
ignored, forgotten and pushed back into history. In a 21st Century urban
setting, we cannot retain customs which were developed for rural life of
the early and mid 20th Century.
Failure to adapt to the times, has resulted in the total abandonment
of New Year festivals in most of the ‘Developed’ countries.
When the festivals and social activities do not fit in to the busy
schedules of urban life, they are ignored. It is already happening in
our country, with regard to most of the New Year practices.
It is easy to merge the Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations as a
first step, because we already have so much in common, beginning with
the date and the concept of Sankranthi. In our religious beliefs we have
so much in common. The sweetmeats we prepare are almost identical, and
acceptable to all.
Most of the games we play during the New Year either have South
Indian origins or are similar to the games played among the Tamil
community. Some games are linked with the belief of goddess Patthini.
Let us set an example to the rest of the world, of what unity among
all mankind could mean, could achieve. Instead of letting other
countries tell us, teach us or order us to live their way, let us show
them that we have a better way of life, based on our ancient traditions
and beliefs. Let us show the world that we can live not only in harmony
and unity among all mankind, but also with nature and with all life
around us.
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