COLOMBO — Shiranti Rambukkana performed traditional Sri Lankan New Year rituals in her Colombo home on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, drawing on an entire year's savings to celebrate the holiday as rising costs strained her family's finances. Sri Lankan Buddhists and Hindus marked their New Year on the same day across the island nation.

At 10:51 a.m., Rambukkana lit a fire under a metal pan of wooden kindling in her living room to boil milk in a clay pot. She faced southward and wore red during the hearth-lighting ritual. Boiling fresh milk in a new clay pot and allowing it to overflow is a customary practice meant to invoke blessings for the year ahead. Astrologers decide auspicious times each year to perform the rituals, and the Ministry of Culture announces them.

After the milk boiled over, Kasoun Rambukkana covered his hands with towels, carried the metal tray holding the kindling, bricks, and clay pot, and placed it outside. Shiranti Rambukkana then extracted coconut milk from shredded coconut she had soaked earlier and placed it into her rice cooker to prepare a traditional coconut rice dish.

At 12:06 p.m., the designated time for the traditional meal, Kasoun Rambukkana scooped coconut milk rice with his fingers and fed it to Shiranti Rambukkana and their children. Family members respectfully touched his feet as part of the New Year ritual. The family's New Year table also included traditional fried lentil and rice flour balls smothered in sticky syrup and store-bought chocolate cakes. The couple planned to distribute much of the food display to neighbors of various faiths — Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists — in their Maligawatta district.

The cost of the milk, coconut, sweets, new clothes, and cash gifts — gifting money being a New Year tradition — exceeded $300, consuming Rambukkana's entire year's savings. She had been secretly setting aside money without her husband knowing, storing it in an empty tin of milk powder with a slot cut into it and sealed with tape.

The family's ability to save had grown harder after the United States and Israel declared war on Iran in late February 2026. The conflict blocked the key shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz, and Sri Lanka, which relies on imported energy from Gulf states, saw fuel and fertilizer prices climb. Cooking gas cylinder prices in the country increased by 20 percent.

The Rambukkana family has been eating less and consuming cheaper foods such as watery curries, dried fish, and rice because of higher food prices. One of the couple's daughters, an athlete, was offered a scholarship in Japan, but the family turned it down because they could not afford the basic expenses. Kasoun Rambukkana underwent heart surgery and was hospitalized last year. According to the World Food Program, one-third of all children in Sri Lanka are malnourished.