Sweet Nothing

Prologue

Pooja's pov

"Sithange pathum itu we
Muwange sina wahe
Siri laka piri avurudu
Siri me.... " 🎶

An Aurudu song is playing in my grandpa's radio. It's finally the April. Us Sri Lankans celebrate our Sinhala & Tamil New Year on this month. And today is the Day. Usually all of our relatives, neighbours and friends get together on this day to celebrate the festival. Moreover, It's a day where you get to do all the silly tricks with cousins and most importantly share gifts with eachother. We all planned to get together in our grandparent's house this time. And me and my parents are already here waiting for others to arrive. Oh I forgot to mention, today is also the day we get to eat all of our traditional foods as much as we want.

Currently I'm taking a walk in the front yard. My grandparent's house feel like more of a home than my own. A 10 acre property with a big house in the middle of it surrounded by trees. Like what more can I ask for. The fresh smell of trees & plants mixed with aroma of the sweets my grandma is making, the cooing sounds of the koel birds, the sound of Raban & firecrackers. It's a pure chaos which I find the comfort in.

"Pooja, your aunts and uncles are almost here. Poure this orange juice to some glasses and give it to them once they are here." I can hear my mom ordering from the kitchen. " POOJA! I'M NOT GONNA REPEAT!" "Ammi calm down, I'm coming." Ha! South asian moms.

While I was at it, I could hear the tyre sounds of few cars. Yeap, all of them are here. I absolutely cannot wait to see my cousins. All of my cousins are married and some even have babies. They all had love marriages. And here I am, who has never experienced love and is already 25. Yes I did have few crushes but even those feelings vanished within few weeks. As I'm the youngest and the only single person in the family, I have a hunch that toady is not gonna be my day. I mean what to do, all of my aunties and uncles love to poke their nose into my business.

"Pooja, honey, I missed you so so much" I could hear someone screaming from my behind. I turned around to see my favourite cousin, Kasuni akka (akka - elder sister) waiting for me to hug her.
Saying "Akki I missed you too" I hugged her. Then I could feel something hugging my legs. Then I narrowed my eyes only to see my little angel, Oneli. Oneli is Kasuni akki's daughter and an absolute cutie. I picked her up and gave a peck on her cheeks before putting her down.

Then the three of us went to the front porch of the house with a tray of orange juice glasses. Once I saw Abhishek aiya (aiya- elder brother) I hugged him tightly. He is my best friend, the brother I wish I had. I am the only child in my family. Therefore my cousins have always been the shoulder for me to rely on. Specially Kasuni akka & Abhishek aiya as my other two cousins, Nethmi akka & Chanuth aiya are living in abroad. Then I hugged Maheel aiya, the husband of Kausni akka and Hashini akka, the wife of Abhishek aiya. " Abhishek aiya, where is our energetic twins?" I asked. " they wanted to see the grandma's garden and they went there with dad" I couldn't help but laugh. Those two love gardening. When they visit their great grandparents, both of them make sure to join my grandma's gardening activities. Looks like they got our grandma's genes.

After all the fun talk, we played karam, finished all the sweets & did many playful activities.

Aurudda never fails to bring our family together. By doing these simple simple things together even though it's only for the tradition, it makes my heart content. It brings out my inner child every damn time. I really hope these beautiful memories will give me a hand to erase all the bad memories with them.

Aurudda is there to bring the peace, success and prosperity to the family and the world. So I take this as a chance to wish all of the Sinhalese and Tamils in the world a Happy New Year! 🌾☀️🌙🧨🎆🎊

To all the aunties who poke their nose into others business 👇