A Traditionalist Snob
I admit i’m quite a sucker for most traditions. A couple of days ago the Avurudu celebrations were held back home and I was feeling quite sad for most of the day, missing our routine at home. Every year we light the hearth at the appropriate time, dressed in the appropriate colour, facing the auspicious direction and hoping the milk boils over following suit. The hearth is great fun, there’s nothing like some controlled arson. Thaththi then feeds all of us in turn, and since last year Teq beq also gets fed kiribath and gets to drink the freshly boiled milk. Seeya and aachchi then come home and have kiribath, and then we follow them back to their place where we have kiribath, do the ganu ganu (at least until last year when I started earning and felt obliged to do some denu, I distinctly remember getting a raw deal, ganu ganu is more my game). The rest of the day is spent traversing Greater Colombo, relative hopping. Not my favourite part of day, but it must be done. Being the youngest I spend a good part of the day on my knees, bulath in hand doing the rounds. This year I missed the whole do and tried to compensate as best I could by boiling milk over the gas cooker, still facing South and decked in vaivarna clothing (well a vaivarna sarong at least). A few friends came over for kiribath, baila and general amusements, and it did feel quite nice.
Tradition is forever challenged by time and progress. This is good in some instances, but not so good in other instances. Ragging for instance is a pathetic tradition, and the sooner it’s out of the picture the better. But certain traditions play an important role in chiselling the identity of cultures, institutions and even families. These traditions need to be protected and carefully nutured. Just recently I heard that the Oxford University tradition of wearing full sub fusc for exams could possibly be made redundent. There was a vote held to make it the choice of each student whether to wear it or not. That sounds fair enough, choice is good after all, but I would have thought that the end result would be obvious. The average student would rather do some last minute revision instead of spending the last 5 minutes getting into the “penguin suit”. Furthermore, the average student is unlikely to feel all that attached to the institution that he/she is part of, and is thus unlikely to want to contribute to the traditions of an institution unless coersed. But happily enough the result of the vote was in favour of keeping the sub fusc.
I bought a ticket for the first Lords test between SL and England in May, and when the ticket came by post I thought they had by mistake sent me a dozen tickets bc the envelope was so fat. The actual ticket was quite standard (thought prettier than your average) but the rest of the contents were more interesting. It included a ticket holder beautifully adorned with a drawing of the ground, a leaflet detailing the available picnic box sets, and most amusingly a 15 page booklet entitled “A guide for ticket holders 2006″ detailing the vast rules and regulations for spectators. Some of them are quite harsh. Among the items banned are flags, banners, musical instruments, klaxons, rattles, fireworks, fancy dress and oversized hats. But, this is after all Lords, it isn’t your average cricket ground. I think it’s fair enough that they try to maintain the traditions that make the ground unique. If you want to wear big hats and beat some drums, as most of us like to do, we can do it anywhere else in the world. There is a reason that any player in the world would want to score a hundred or take 5 wickets at Lords, it’s because Lords is unique, it is steeped in tradition and it is like no other. Therefore I have no qualms with allowing the ground and the MCC to try and maintain that uniqueness, afterall I’m just a spec in the 219 year history of the MCC.
A lot of ppl can’t be bothered doing the avurudu traditions, most ppl scoff at the requirements of watching cricket at Lords, most Oxbridge students find the sub fusc to be a hassle, but it’s different traditions like these which make the human race interesting. The unique cultural celebrations add a bit of colour to life, Lords is a special cricket ground whose appeal is derived from its adhering to tradition more than others and finally Oxford University is special not because of its education (other than one on one tutes) but because of its rich history and the traditions it clings to. It would be sad if we fail to cling to such traditions and slip into monotonous homogeneity. Each day traditions are lost and the world becomes that much less interesting. I think it’s important to maintain and celebrate diversity, to celebrate that uniqueness with which we’re all born.
