This is not the first time such a thing has happened in Sri Lanka. In 2023, when I returned home to visit my grandpa, I stood and watched the queues snake around petrol stations in Sri Lanka. My family and I were exhausted, and tempers were growing with arguments over who had been waiting longer. There was chaos and a collective disbelief that a country could unravel so quickly. I never thought I would be writing those words again so soon.
But here we are.
Earlier last week, multiple South Asian countries were affected by the ripple effects of fuel shortages caused by the ongoing Iran-US conflict. Among these countries is my cultural home of Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan government introduced a short four-day working week for all state institutions, schools, and universities. Every Wednesday is taken as a national holiday. The trigger is thousands of miles away: the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20 % of global oil exports pass, has been effectively closed by Iran amid the ongoing conflict with the US and Israel. Sri Lanka imports almost every drop of its fuel. Reserves are expected to last six weeks. After that, nothing is clear about what will happen next.
Why Wednesday?
The choice of Wednesday was not random. A Monday off would create a three-day weekend, and one of the government’s fears was that people would use the extra time to travel, burning the very fuel it was desperately trying to conserve. A Friday break carries the same risk. Saturday and Sunday are already rest days, and removing a day adjacent to them risks disrupting the functioning of banks and stock markets. Wednesday sits squarely in the middle of the week. It is inconvenient enough to discourage leisure travel yet calculated enough to keep the economic machinery from seizing up entirely.
This logic seems to make sense in a government meeting room, but on the ground, it feels rather different.
Every day, thousands of Sri Lankans stand at petrol stations, phone in hand, scanning a QR code on their screen. The reinstation of the National Fuel Pass system means that motor cars are limited to 25 liters per week and motorcycles are limited to 8 liters per week. Even number plates fill up on even days, odd on odd. It seems orderly, but the sight of these queues harkens back to the fuel crisis in 2023.
However, this time feels different in small but important ways. The new government under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake seems to have a more organized system that helps avoid the raw chaos that I witnessed during the last crisis. Despite this momentary relief, there is still a fear of how quickly things can unravel. Oil prices have already surged to around $100 per barrel. The routes are disrupted, and food prices are climbing. The outlook does not seem positive.
The Underlying Cost
I was able to interview Ravi, an auto-rickshaw driver based in Batticaloa on Sri Lanka’s East Coast, who is already facing the preliminary effects of this crisis. Since fuel has been rationed and since Wednesday is off, fewer people are moving around. With no other choice, Ravi has been forced to raise his fares, but higher fares mean even fewer customers. It is a circle with no clean exit. “There is a reaction for every single action,” he says simply.
Ravi certainly seems to be correct about that.
For private tutors, Wednesday is a day’s income, simply gone. Many of the students who use these tutors are sitting Advanced Level (A/L) exams – the gateway to University in Sri Lanka. For these students, the disruption runs deeper than one lost lesson. Parents in Batticaloa are quietly worried that if the closures continue, the A/L exams themselves may need to be postponed. The syllabus is not complete. An entire year of a young person’s life is recalibrated around a conflict they had no part in. Being in the same age group, I can feel how agonizing the mental stress must be on these kids.
My cousin, Dr. Maria Harshini Sooriyakumar, a veterinarian based in Kattankudy, describes how her community is adapting to this in various ways. As a mother with two young children, she is doing her best to comply with the government’s recommendations. Kerosene is being bought and stored against the fear of power cuts. LP gas, used for cooking and imported from India, is running short as supply chains strain under the weight of the crisis. She has also set aside gas for emergencies. Other families in her position are buying more than they need today, against the fear of needing it tomorrow and finding nothing there.
There is a particular kind of fear that spreads through a community that has already been through something like this. Sri Lanka is still recovering from its 2022 economic collapse when the country defaulted on $46 billion in foreign debt and ran out of foreign exchange. People went without medicine and struggling families were forced to skipped meals. Now, a similar threat lies on the horizon. At an emergency meeting on March 16th , 2026, President Dissanayake told senior officials: “We must prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.” It was meant, perhaps, as reassurance. For many Sri Lankans who lived through 2022, it landed as confirmation of what they already suspected.
Uncertain Future
Now, on Wednesday mornings in Batticaloa, the streets are quieter than usual. School is closed and the tuition centers are shut. Ravi’s auto-rickshaw is still idle – there are not enough fares to make the fuel worth spending. My cousin is at home, cooking over firewood. The smell of smoke drifts through a house that is stocking canned goods and doing all the quiet, practical things that people do when they are afraid but cannot afford to stop functioning.
Sri Lankans have adapted before and they are adapting again. The idea of carpooling, scanning QR codes, and cooking over firewood are not new to these people. However, behind every Wednesday silence is a country that has been asked, once again, to absorb a shock it did not cause and cannot control. The Iran – US conflict is far away, but in kitchens across Sri Lanka, that struggle feels much closer to home.
