he Sinhalese (Buddhists) and the Tamils (Hindus) in Sri Lanka celebrated the Astrological New Year on Sunday with traditional religious observances and the attendant fun and games creating a sense of entertainment and bonhomie among friends, neighbours and relations. This festival which has now come to be popularly known among many as the National New Year is unique in the sense that it is one festival celebrated by both the Sinhala and Tamil communities at this time of the year.   
The New Year is marked or coincides with the sun moving from Meena Rashiya or the house of Pisces to take its abode in Mesha Rashiya or the house of Aries. It also marks the end of the harvest season and is generally celebrated on April 13 and 14. During the festive period Sri Lanka is known to go into shutdown-mode with workers returning to their villages some in remote areas to join their kith and kin and observe the various rituals and attend religious observances that are prescribed to obtain blessings in the New Year.   

A customary forerunner to its arrival is the common garden bird known as the Asian Koel or the ‘Koha’ often described as the ‘New Year Cuckoo’ which with its incessant call or song heralds the National New Year in April.   
With the end the old year people flock to Temples and Kovils to receive the blessings of the deities. Children offer sheaves of betel to parents and elders as a sign of gratitude and in return receive their blessings for a peaceful and prosperous New Year. As a part of the celebration a table is laid out with traditional sweetmeats which are partaken of by the entire family while plates filled with such delicacies are also distributed among non-Buddhist or non-Hindu neighbours symbolising the camaraderie that prevails among all communities.   
Another New Year tradition is the beating of the ‘Rabana’ a large drum which is unique to Sri Lanka. It is generally beaten by women to popular and contagious tunes or rhymes heard mainly in the villages during the festival: 

Uda palagathath wattakka, bima palagathath wattakka , uda palagathath, bima palagathath punchi, punchigedi wattakka; Tekka nanda, Tekka nanda, Thekka mama koi. Gahen watila, kondakedila kussiya mulle doi; Udin, udin wara peththappu, bimin, bimin wara peththappu, undin udin wara, bimin, bimin wara kevun kanda warapehthtappu.
Although the culture and traditions are unique to the Sinhala and Tamil communities, it is vital that at this time of the year when this nationally important festival is being celebrated, the peace and harmony which underpins the sentiments expressed during the festivities are continued throughout the year no matter what our caste, creed, social status or community might be so that the New Year will bear the fruits of our good wishes to each other.   
Against such a background, when friendships are renewed, broken relationships are restored and elders given pride of place, it will do well for all of us to recall and recollect, echo and re-echo those perennial and heartfelt words penned by Rev. Walter Stanley Senior, himself a Britisher, in his poem, ‘Call for Lanka’, when Ceylon as it was then known, was under colonial rule. 

We hope that his words would stir the patriotic fervour and zeal of all Sri Lankans to work towards genuine peace, harmony and reconciliation by changing our mind-set from independence to that of interdependence on our brothers and sisters of a single Sri Lankan family while at times of conflict let us resolve to be part of the solution rather than being a part of the problem because to move ahead we need each other.   
What better way to express our good wishes to all Sri Lankans during this season of goodwill other than through this excerpt from Rev. Senior’s Call for Lanka:   

But most shall he sing of Lanka,
In the brave new days that come,
When the races all have blended,
And the voice of strife is dumb,
When we leap to a single bugle, 
March to a single drum.

Let us commit ourselves to make this vision of a united Sri Lanka so poignantly expressed and envisaged by him sincerely impel Mother Lanka’s children to think Sri Lankan and be Sri Lankan and even more important let us not stop at that but let us make it happen.