Thousands of Sri Lankan residents in Qatar yesterday celebrated the Sinhala and Tamil New Year “Bakmaha Ulela 2012” with a colourful event.According to Sinhalese astrology, New Year begins when the sun moves from Meena Rashiya (the house of Aries) to Mesha Rashiya and it also marks the end of the harvest and spring.The new year day, generally celebrated on April 13 or 14, is a public holiday in Sri Lanka. The timing of the Sinhala New Year coincides with the new year celebrations of many traditional calendars of South and Southeast Asia such as Tamil, Thai, Bengali and the Oriya New Year festival in India.As early as 7am yesterday, enthusiastic community members started trooping to the Al Saad Sports Club ground to witness an array of programmes lined up for the day-long event organised by the Sri Lanka embassy in collaboration with the Sri Lankan Co-ordinating Committee (SLCC) Qatar and Sri Lankan Community Benevolent Fund (SLCBF).The day’s proceedings began with children from the Sinhalese and Tamil communities decked up in traditional attire welcoming the chief guest, Sri Lankan ambassador Jayantha Palipane, embassy minister and deputy chief of mission R S Khan Azad, Qatar Ministry of Interior’s North Security department Community Policing head Lt Colonel Ahmed Zayed al-Muhannadi, Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) deputy general manager W M V Wansekara and other notable guests from the embassy and the community.
A drummer in traditional attire led the chief guest and other invitees for the hoisting of the Qatar and Sri Lankan flags as well as the lighting the traditional oil lamp. Ambassador Palipane later addressed and greeted the community on the New Year and declared the event open. At the event, traditional breakfast sponsored by Gulf Paradise Hotel, Ramada Plaza Doha, DynCorp International, Regency Hotel and Lanka Lions was served. Traditional food was also aplenty at a stall operated by the SLCBF at the venue. To make the day a memorable one, a large number of community members including men, women and children took part in many of the events and entertained the gathering.Highlights included live entertainment and performances, musical shows as well as a comedy extravaganza by famous Sri Lankan actor and comedian Giriraj Kaushalya, who was specially flown in from Colombo for the event by the SriLankan Airlines. Apart from entertaining the audience with his comedy, he also showcased his singing talent. In addition, popular artiste Jagath Wickramasinghe backed by Doha-based Sri Lankan band Ridma enthralled the community members with hit songs in Sinhala and Tamil. Winners of the sports and traditional events held as part of the new year celebrations received prizes, which were sponsored by Trico International, CCU Logistics, Domasco, Sports Corner and Old Anandians Doha.
A raffle ticket draw was also held at the end of the programme with winners taking home valuable prizes from SriLankan Airlines, Sri Lankan Co-ordinating Committee, New White Oceanic Restaurants and Al Wasal Furniture. Premier television station Rupavahini sponsored by the SLBFE also covered the event for its broadcast in Sri Lanka.The entire new year programme was sponsored by Bank of Ceylon, Sri Lanka and co-sponsored by SriLankan Airlines, SLBFE and Al Bateel Security. Lankadeepa Middle East and Virakesari were the media sponsors. Sri Lankan Quantity Surveyors Association and Sri Lankan Sports Club, Wakrah supported the event through their participation in the registration and staging of a volleyball tournament. The programme was compered in Sinhala and Tamil languages respectively by Tennison Silva, Ranjith Gurusinghe, Mahesh Abhayapala and Fiyaz.