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Sweet past dying fast

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Sweet past dying fast

Kirulapone's kavum amma

Finding her was not difficult. From Kirulapone to Horana and Colombo 7, all ladies who do not know how to prepare traditional sweetmeats knew her. Her kavum, kokis, athirasa and kiribath have taken pride of place at many a function.

R. W. M. Karunawathie or Karuna Akka of Kirula Project who has made a name for herself as the kavum amma of Kirulapone market, was having a quiet meal off a plastic bowl. "I just returned from a kiri ammavarunge dhane," she told us apologising profusely for the lack of space in her three-room cement house. Wiping beads of sweat from her forehead, she dusted chairs covered with blue lace. "I was very young when I first started making kavum," she said, keeping aside her lunch and recalling those hours spent in her mother's kitchen learning to prepare the traditional sweetmeats.

Her mother already being in the sweetmeat business, it had been natural for Karunawathie to learn the art of making delicious oil cakes and kokis as a ten-year-old, struggling with the kavum koora trying to make a perfect konda kavum. "My mother urged me to take this art seriously and learn how to make them perfectly. She said it would be helpful to me in the future and see me through difficult times," said a smiling Karunawathie, who recalled how her mother lost patience trying to teach her and gave her a few knocks on the head.

Karunawathie's kavum business keeps her home fires burning today and provides her asthmatic husband with peace of mind. Having commenced preparing sweetmeats for sale at the age of 27, Karunawathie travels far to prepare sweetmeats for weddings, dhanes and other functions. "It was at a kiri ammavarunge dhane in Wadduwa that I first prepared sweetmeats." "I prepared kiriya."

Karunawathie sells her kavum at the Kirulapone market at nine rupees per kavum and charges Rs.75 per kilo if she cooks them outside her home. "Some people bring me the ingredients but most of them do not know the ingredients. I have a stock these days because I get a lot of orders during this period."

Karunawathie's income from preparing sweetmeats like kavum, mung kavum, aluva, athi rasa, asmi and kiriya ranges between Rs.2,000-3,000 and when there is no demand for kavum she cooks at various places and even supplies string-hoppers to the nearby shop. "I can cook any local food but I don't know how to bake cakes," she confides. "Most of the missies at the bangala I visit know how to make western food but not kavum and kokis. You have to get used to holding the spoon and koora properly to make a good konda kavum. That comes with practice and most people don't have the time and patience to sit at the fire and cook one kavum after the other."
"Some of them are genuinely interested but find it difficult to sit for long near the fire while others just pay me the money and don't even come to the kitchen to see what is happening. Either way, I have business because not many people know the art of sweetmeat making. I have taught my 15-year-old daughter how to make them because we have to preserve our traditions for the future generations," she adds.

Are working women losing the traditional touch, asks Naomi Gunasekera

Despite the Sinhala and Tamil New Year being a collective cultural celebration of the harvest-reaping festival, most of us celebrate the New Year by cooking kiribath and observing the traditions associated with it. However, not all of us are lucky enough to experience that traditional avurudu feeling where the rituals are performed by women who play a significant role in the celebrations by sewing clothes, cleaning their homes and preparing delicious sweetmeats weeks before the festival.

"We don't prepare any sweetmeats at home because my mother does not have the time," says 10-year-old Rushika Perera who loves to spend her avurudu holidays with her grandparents. "Achchi makes nice kavum and kokis. But Ammi doesn't know how to. She buys, them from the shop."

Like Rushika's mother, many working women prefer to buy the traditional sweetmeats from the nearest shop though they observe avurudu rituals and prepare for the festival by doing their shopping and cleaning. Is it that the modern woman is too busy to prepare these age-old sweetmeats that take pride of place on the avurudu table or do they lack the time and knowledge to make them?

According to Dr. Nirmala Pieris who heads the Corporate Services Division of the Industrial Technology Institute, not many people in Colombo prepare traditional sweetmeats because there are so many places that sell them.

"My mother used to prepare these things. But I haven't even tried and I don't know why," she said, asked if she knew how to make any of the traditional sweetmeats. "I must admit that it is something that is dying out in the cities. I haven't found making them at home to be all that important because for one thing you have to do a lot of preparations and sit by the fire. I think the modern woman is running out of patience because she has so many roles to play."

"We have very limited time and especially if you are a career woman trying to cope with your home, family and job, it becomes difficult to look into intricacies like these. I think this is the main reason the modern woman does not know how to make kavum and kokis. But given the time I feel they would like to try preparing them."

Although the trend towards buying sweetmeats seems to be growing, Dr. Pieris feels that the art of preparing them will remain alive in the villages. "I don't think it will die because the villagers don't buy their sweetmeats."

According to Susith Dharmawardena, manager of a leading supermarket in Colombo most of their customers buy the traditional sweetmeats during avurudu. "We started selling sweetmeats about three years ago and the response has been very good. The idea was on the one hand to create that avurudu atmosphere and on the other to make traditional sweetmeats easily available for those do not have the skill to prepare them."

"You've got the wrong person; I don't even cook rice and dhal," said Pauline Bandaranaike, who visits her in-laws during avurudu. "They observe all the rituals and prepare the sweetmeats and it is strange that coming from a conventional background I never learnt how to prepare them. Most of my cousins who live in the suburbs still prepare the kavum and kokis but I never learnt how. Maybe because I have no children of my own and do not have any responsibility to pass on these traditions to the next generation."

Shiroma Peries feels that women do not prepare these sweetmeats because of their 'western mentality'. "As women become more and more independent, sociable and educated, they feel that anything that comes from the west is to be embraced because that is what is acceptable in society. They feel that the traditional sweetmeats should be prepared by uneducated women who have nothing better to do."

A working woman herself, Ms. Peiries makes an effort to make her own sweetmeats for avurudu. "Most of us have the time to bake cakes and make pastries and puddings that are sometimes difficult and more time consuming than preparing kavum or kokis. What we have is an attitude problem. We think that kavum and kokis are not meant to be prepared by the professional woman. We have to break away from that notion and try to preserve our culture without embracing everything that the west gives us."
"When we were small avurudu was a festival and my mother and aunts got together weeks before and bought ingredients to prepare the sweetmeats. We had a great time helping and watching them," said Pamela Goonewardena, a grandmother who regrets not forcing her daughters to learn how to prepare these sweetmeats. "They were simply uninterested and said it took too much time. Everything is getting instant these days and I wonder if someone would think of instant kavum."

"When both spouses work it becomes very difficult for them to even prepare their daily meals. Everything is changing. Our traditions, values and even lifestyles. Why do you think people eat out and spend as much as Rs.150 to 200 on lunch or dinner? They simply don't have the time to cook. I wouldn't be here having my lunch if my wife had the time to prepare kavum and kokis," said Lenin Samuel, who was sharing a meal with friends at a restaurant. So if you are enjoying homemade kavum and kokis this avurudu, you're one of the lucky ones.


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