Sweet
past dying fast
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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.
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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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