The ‘Avurudu Uthsawaya’

Aposter was put up at the village junction announcing the upcoming ‘ Avurudu Uthsawaya’, held annually to celebrate the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. Bindu was excited. Last year he took part in a few events but didn’t win anything. This year he was determined to win at least one gift.

Bindu decided to take part in the sack race and the bun eating competition this time. Bindu’s elder brother was interested in the cycle race. Bindu’s father was one of the chief organizers of the celebration.

A week before the Avurudu Festival, the organizers brought the gift boxes for the events, for safe keeping at Bindu’s house. The cardboard boxes were kept in their storeroom.

“As one of the chief organizers,

I am responsible for these gifts. So make sure that nobody goes into the storeroom for any reason!” Bindu’s father told his family members sternly.

One morning Bindu’s father was already at work and Bindu’s mother was going to go to the market. “The two of you stay at home and don’t go anywhere,” instructed Bindu’s mother as she left. “Malli,

I need to go and practice my cycling,” said Bindu’s brother after awhile. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back soon!”

Bindu watched his brother take off. He then went straight into his father’s room. In his father’s drawer storeroom key at once. Bindu’s heart was beating fast – he knew he was about to do something wrong.

His father had forbidden anyone from going into the storeroom. But his curiosity was just too much. “I’ll just look at the gift boxes. I won’t even touch them!” he promised himself.

The room was full of different sized boxes. Each box had the name of the event written on them. Bindu carefully looked around for the gift boxes for the sack race and the bun eating competition and found them. “I’ll just see what’s inside. After that I’ll close them again,” thought Bindu. The sack race had an alarm clock and the bun eating competition had a mug. “These are boring gifts!” thought Bindu, “if I win, I wouldn’t like to receive these at all!”

Bindu opened a few other boxes packed for the other events. One of them had a nice cap and there was a kite in another. Bindu swapped the gifts and put the ones he liked in the boxes for his events. There was a big box with the words “Tug-of-war winning team” written on it.

But Bindu didn’t bother to read the name of the event. He just wanted to see what was in such a big box.

Bindu carefully opened the box. It was full of large chocolate slabs for each member of the winning team. He took all of them out and put them into the two boxes for his events. into the now empty, Tug–of-war box.

He opened another box for another event and found a big packet of tea leaves. He put that into the Tug-ofwar gift box. Then he proceeded to open the other boxes and kept on had something in them. Then he carefully closed all the boxes as they were before, and slowly came out of the storeroom.

The day of the ‘ Avurudu Uthsawaya’ Bindu and his family went there early, taking the gift boxes in their van. Everyone got excited as the games of-war. The two teams started pulling the rope whilst the onlookers cheered.

Bindu took part in the two events he was interested in and managed to win the sack race. He was happy because he knew what the gift was. “If I won the bun eating competition I could have got the kite and more chocolates,” he thought, looking jealously at the boy who had won it.

Towards evening, the distribution of gifts took place. The announcer called out the winning team of the guest looked surprised as he lifted the big box which wasn’t the least bit heavy. The team leader received the gift and the announcer invited him to open it and to hand over one gift each, to all the team members.

The team leader opened the box and took out a big pack of tea leaves. He looked around in confusion.

So did the organizers. It was the gift which Bindu replaced after taking the chocolates. Bindu started to sweat. He didn’t realize the mistake he’d made, until now. “I should have bothered to read the event name written on the box,” he thought looking around in guilt.

“Where are the chocolate slabs for all the team players?” asked an organizer. They started to open the other gifts one by one and were very surprised to see that all the gifts were mixed up. The gift distribution was temporarily halted and the winners were asked to come the next day.

The crowd left in confusion and Bindu slowly went near the organizing committee. As he got closer, he started crying because he knew he was in big trouble. He told them what he had done and Bindu’s father was very angry. He wanted to punish Bindu at once. But an elderly uncle stopped him and asked Bindu why he did it.

“I wanted to have nice gifts for myself!” bawled Bindu and the organizers who were angry ended up laughing.

“Avurudu is a time for sharing. These gifts were to be shared with all participants.”

“I know how wrong I was,” cried Bindu. “Please forgive me!”

“Avurudu is also a time for forgiving others’ mistakes,” smiled the elderly uncle. “Bindu has learned his lesson, so he will be forgiven. But there will be a small punishment. He has to rearrange all these boxes with the correct gifts!”

“I will do it,” promised Bindu.

“I now understand that Avurudu is alone, but sharing and enjoying with everyone!”