My Avurudda

My roots keep calling me, above the baby green paddy fields, over the ice-cool waters of the tiny streams that run unquenched in the hot month of April. When things back in Colombo take the shape of devils, I will remind myself the welcoming smile of Achchi who stands on the doorstep, looking at the footpath the whole day, expecting our arrival.

I will dream of disappearing into her embrace and later listen to her bedtime stories whose charms are still very much intact. She will take me around the garden showing me an interesting plant or a creature or gently complain about the bunch of squirrels that ate all the guavas she was saving for me. She would think it’s her duty to make sure my mouth is busy during my stay. ‘kola kenda’ will replace my morning tea. I will eat green vegetables for all three meals and feel the freshness imbibing into my cells.

‘Avurudda’ is the ticket she gets to see us. It is the time she gets into the role of the queen and orders the cow-dung and clay paste to dry on her fresh hearth, the ‘kokis’ to dance in the oil and ‘kevum’ to have perfect hair. It’sthe time she buries herself among the bunch of us grandkids and become one of us.

However much mild she can be,  Achchi is a disciplinarian when it comes to auspicious times. She makes sure that every ‘charithraya’ is performed right on time and all of us are looking at the right directions wearing the clothes of right colour.  She would feed us every sweetmeat,  prepared with a lot of love and care. And at the end of the day, like a kid, she disappears in the mound of gifts the villagers and relatives bring for her.

Even the village is urbanized and the old hype for avurudda had toned down, it is this picture which keeps pulling me from the Colombo buzz and makes me feel like an alien in the very city I was born. It is part of the legacy that was handed down to me by my parents, along with their brains, the DNA, the family names- the love for traditions. Even in the valleys of the river Neil or on the bridge of Sighs in Venice, I remember that one event awaits me so many miles away. When I see her smile lighting up at the sight of my face, I know I have come home.