Vesak 2023

For this Vesak, I was mostly free. No O/Ls, No A/L. Even though I had lectures, they were in the evening or night. I also had holidays for the weekend. I was concerned about how insignificantly we celebrate the Vesak compared to other counties and the fact that I was busy in the last few years and have never tried making Vesak lanterns with bamboo trees. Therefore, I decided to do something special on this Vesak.

I began to make Lotus flowers three days before the Vesak. For the record, I have never made Vesak lanterns with bamboo trees ever before. I made Lotus flowers with my friends in college when I was in 7th grade for a Vesak festival. Since then, this is the first time I do this myself.

Fortunately, I could find two bamboo trunks at our home. I had to be careful with bamboo trees though because they could scratch my hand. Initially, I wanted to make seven lotus flowers. But I decided only to make six by the Vesak day to reduce workload. Making sticks with bamboo was easier than I thought. I found faster ways to make lotus flowers as I was making many of them.

I made 3 big ones and another 3 smaller ones. On the Vesak day, I placed them on our balcony wall and lighted them with oil lamps. My mom made other rectangular lanterns in five colors, and they were lit by bulbs. 

On Sunday evening we went to Galle to see Vesak. There were various Vesak decorations along the Galle stadium road. We also went to Galle Fort and stayed there for a while. The view from there near the clock tower with the dark night sky with a full moon was amazing. Red taillights and yellowish headlight of the traffic was amazing scenery in the black background. Even though there was traffic, The traffic was moving. I made an Instagram story on it. We went to our aunt's home for dinner on our way back home.

I made several social media posts on this Vesak. Most of the videos were edited and uploaded after the Vesak as I was busy with Vesak preparations.