The Sinhala and Tamil New Year is symbolic of new hopes and new beginnings for every Sri Lankan both within the country and abroad. Practices such as spring-cleaning houses for the New Year and buying new clothes for family and relatives symbolise the welcoming of new times and circumstances. 

As the New Year approaches on 13 and 14 April, many Sinhalese and Tamil households welcome the season by shopping for the most delectable New Year delicacies that they can get their hands on, especially as people – mostly city-dwellers – move away from homemade sweetmeats.

The New Year table, filled with traditional dishes such as milk rice, mung kavum, and laddu has always been a reminder of our culture amidst changing circumstances. However, circumstances may not always be kind, and culture may not be eternal.

Traditional tidings

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the New Year preparations, sellers of traditional New Year sweetmeats get ready to sell the fruit of their hard work to their locality.

“I get up at around four o’clock every morning and make batches of traditional sweets such as konde kavum, kokis, and mung kavum,” Lalitha Chandramalini, a sweet seller based in Mathugama, told The Daily Morning Brunch. “I have been in this business for decades and I have been blessed with a handful of loyal customers who I have got to know very well.”

Chandramalini said that preparing New Year sweets has been both a job and a source of great joy to her as she gets to preserve part of Sri Lanka’s unique and historic culture while strengthening ties with her community.

“I learnt all my recipes from my mother who in turn learnt it from her mother,” Chandramalini said. “So, it really is an honour for me to not only pass our recipes down to our children but to share my family’s legacy with the community.”

Chandramalini said that she is not only able to share her cooking with new customers who are curious about traditional homemade sweets but also to people of her generation who have tasted and grown up with her mother’s cooking.

Meanwhile, J.M.A Premawathie, another Mathugama-based sweet seller, reflected on how happy she was to sell sweets to older people as well as to young people.

“I am so happy to see people in their twenties, teenagers, and even children come up to me and tell me that my sweets are good,” Premawathie said. “Of course, some of them want their own variations of our traditional food but I am very happy to provide this if it means that they appreciate our traditional meals.”

Premawathie said that despite the joys, changing circumstances have made selling sweets both a chaotic and challenging occupation.

Challenging changes

Both Chandramalini and Premawathie stated that despite their love for making sweets, it often comes at a price. 

“As much as I love sharing my cooking with people of my town, it is often very difficult to survive on this living alone,” Chandramalini said. “Many people who shop for New Year sweets today often overlook traditional home businesses like mine and often head out to supermarkets where they are ensured of a wider selection.”

Both women said that the inability to compete with large-scale stores have caused many home-based sweet shops to go out of business. Another fierce competitor is New Year sweet shops that pop up on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.

“It is only the customer-base that we built over generations that buy from people like us,” Premawathie said. “I often see my customers’ children and grandchildren buy sweets from supermarkets or from social media vendors with means to advertise, package, and deliver the sweets to them.”

Both sweet sellers said that despite their loss of business, they are happy that people still carry out the New Year traditions. However, both of them expressed their fear of rising prices of ingredients and cost of living affecting how people celebrate New Year’s Day.

One such ingredient is coconut. Coconut plays a major role in Sri Lankan food with staple New Year confectionary items such as dodol and bibikkan being made out of coconut. Sweets such as kokis are traditionally fried in coconut oil while many other sweets require coconut milk in its preparation.

Factors such as fertiliser shortages, adverse weather conditions, and pest infestations are among the factors that have contributed to a shortage in coconuts across the country, leading to a hike in coconut prices. The price of a single coconut has now risen to Rs. 185 to Rs. 195 per nut. 

“As the cost of ingredients soar, we have no other option but to pass the cost to our consumers as we do not have the means to bear the loss,” Premawathie said. “While this has not led to our customers abandoning us, we often see people buying less sweets than they did before.”

Sweet sellers say that as prices and cost of living increase, customers from poorer households feel discouraged from buying New Year food while some of them have given up celebrating New Year altogether.

“This is a terrible situation as the Sinhala and Tamil New Year is a celebration that ties the whole country together,” Chandramalini said. “It is unfortunate that so many people are poor to the point that we forget our traditions and traditional recipes.”

Yet, despite adverse economic struggles, both sweet sellers remain hopeful that the traditional recipes that have passed down for generations will never die.

PHOTO Ishan Sanjeewa