Hitting the jackpot with smashing success!

Avurudu games an ancient stress therapy :

Gaston de ROSAYRO

It is Sinhala and Tamil New Year 2012. I realise with sudden clarity that our ancestors knew how to handle anger management long before the fancy highly-paid, high-falutin’ psychologists and psychiatrists made a profitable career of it. Yes, at least our forefathers knew how to unwind and vent their frustrations at least during the harvest festival. So they invented innovative games to relieve the stress and tension and have a heck of a lot of fun in the process.

The fun and games had started with kids’ races. Pillow fights, the grease pole and various other traditional games are the order of the day. But the tournament I had been persuaded to enter was a sort of blind-man’s buff where one had to possess a sixth sense and an element of pure luck. You also had to have the homing instincts of a bat and the ability to navigate in total darkness by echolocation. That is because you are tightly blindfolded.

I was minding my own business as a hotel guest when I was actually dragooned into competing in the ‘Avurudu Ulela’ entertainment. I was virtually frogmarched to the sandy arena where a dozen younger contestants were wielding heavy poles. Conventional wisdom suggested that I remain a spectator and enjoy the hilarity of other people make fools of themselves. I was about to back off when some toddy-fuelled idiot made a scathing remark about age. I knew I had my fair share of supporters on the sidelines as I was greeted with a cheer.

So I decided to pick up the gauntlet. All right, I admit I am one of those kids at heart who just loves the flow of adrenaline. Even now I am compelled to push myself beyond the comfort zone. Most of the time everything seems fine, but I do find myself when overextended gasping for breath every now and again.

So I grabbed a massive bamboo and wielded it like a broadsword. Besides, if I had simply sat on the sidelines of the sand dunes I would have left my dozens of fans disappointed. You cannot leave footprints in the sands of time if you are sitting on your butt, and who wants to leave butt prints in the sands of time!

All you had to do is locate a half dozen earthenware pots connected on a rope suspended on two parallel coconut palms. You are rotated a couple of times at a starting point some twelve paces from the target, blindfolded and expected to smash the pots in a totally befuddled state. The game is quite hilarious because many competitors stray in the opposite direction, some threateningly towards the spectators who scatter for their very lives.Some of the blind swings hit the palms of the coconut trunks, others sliced through thin air and all misses are greeted with loud gales of laughter from a hilarious audience.

A woman competitor actually hit a suspended target but her swipe was ineffectual and the pot remained swinging in all its un-fragmented glory.

I have learned that in whatever human endeavour it is best to keep a cool head. So just before the competition proper I paced the arena from the starting point to the targets with measured tread. I counted twelve paces. I also made sure that the sounding whoosh of waves was to my right and the rabana rhythm some distance behind me and to my left. When I flip my lid I like to break things. Not all the time, but on days when everything seems to be going wrong, I would love to smash some crockery or better still bash a few thick human skulls. Some of the insufferable creatures out there do have faces and heads that are crying out to be deservedly broken.

So I purposely headed in a slightly wayward direction where I had last detected the voice of my tormentor. I moved menacingly with raised weapon as if to poleaxe him for good. And as I advanced in similarity to the executing axeman I kept mumbling like a mantra: “Rosa.. polla genning balla maranna!”

There was a yell and a shuffling of feet scampering against the grainy sand followed by a gust of derisive laughter. I perceived by then the big-mouthed fool had scampered for his life! “Right,” yelled my nephew Ashi from the sidelines as I sidestepped in the right direction. “Yes,” was the encouraging advice from the crowd as I must have been perilously close to the target. But trusting my own instinct I retreated a pace or two. The crowd roared: “Whoa!” I believed I was under and at the correct swinging distance of the target. If my calculations were right there would be two pots within smashing distance. If I missed one the chances were even that I would strike the other. A case of hitting either pot with a single shot!

I took a deep breath and swung the bamboo in similarity to hooking a cricketing bouncer that had whizzed past my head. I felt a shattering resistance as both bamboo and pot went into smithereens! I was drenched with orange-coloured water but quite elated at my smashing success. Then it was time for the jackpot when with a little advice from the crowd I axed the winning pot with unerring instinctive ease. And as the prized pot was reduced to atoms I was showered with the soft petals of frangipani it contained. Really a fitting tribute to an Avuruddhu champion – which is something to be - as I wallowed in the admiration as if I had won an Olympic event.

In all it is a smashing sort of therapy for the stressed. But call me wickedly overambitious. Because I only wish they were the heads of certain pig-headed people that I could prove are as delightfully breakable.

[email protected]