‘I fetched out my I-love Munchen lighter. A present from Mrs. Klein, who came down here last month looking for sun, samadhi and plush aromatherapy after her Vanni One project in the north. I had been planning to give up smoking, but it was so nice of her that I have delayed the quit-plan and started a pure air deficit plan. And I like the idea of carrying a flame in my pocket”
See, it’s not time to quit but rather have a fresh slate. Like Vasantha did. Sometimes we feel that we have nowhere to go, but keep rolling under stars. There is hope, some hope that things will change someday like Romesh says. We have paid a heavy toll, to both North and South. And now living through broken memory, trying to mend things. Along the southern coast there is still debris of Tsunami, even after so many years of that Boxing Day in 2004 when the tide played hell. It may sometimes frighten us to think whether we can totally get rid of that monstrous past. Because still the scars are left . For some the future is another country, like for the boy Vasantha meets in the Jaffna library, who reads Dante, learns Italian and make plans to go to Italy. Because a thirty year war has left no good future but damaged hearts and lost roots.
Romesh Gunasekara’s Noontide Toll is a collection of many stories of post war in this country. Vasantha took me miles passing Killinochchi and Omanthai upto Jaffna and a right turn from its tip to Delft and Kayts islands. Then back to Galle fort, the lighthouse and the Dutch ramparts where rich history is still alive. At least there is old brick and structure remaining, let’s say. Vasantha being the protagonist and the narrative, is a retired worker from a Corporation, unmarried and prefers to rest his hands on a steering wheel. He is not the guy who likes to stay behind a desk. He buys a Van for himself with his savings and works as a Driver for hire in SriLanka. He ferries Entrepreneurs, charity workers, playboys across Europe and people from wayfaring families around the country. For Vasantha there is much to learn from the eye of a visitor. He is born after a lot of damage that took place in 80’s. There is lack of knowledge and curiosity that Romesh loads in Vasantha. To us there is history that can be easily grabbed from him. Vasantha is packed with every tit bit about the uncertain lives, terrorized by the lived long war.
There are things that we don’t like to speak of, we carefully try to forget, places that we don’t like to stray into. Every one of us has a private past; we are a store of thoughts, feelings and sensations. Things we have gone through more than decades can possibly hurt. No matter the new buildings, paved roads, new houses, clean water or everything else new we get .Romesh, in that case brilliantly depicts the true catastrophe, the fear mingling minds, misfortunes and scattered future running through new roads in Jaffna. The general psychology of men left in war is deeply moving and inspiring. Romesh is effortlessly successful in bringing out the human vulnerability.
Miss Saraswati is a phenomenal character in his collection.
Saraswati sits with her legs crossed in the main balcony of the hotel. Bent down. When she straightened up again, she has something in her hand , looks like a revolver but when clicked there is a beam of light that runs along the fence at the end , sweep around the pond . The light is steady as a military searchlight. She switches it off then. It’s darker than ever again.
Romesh illustrates the distress and horror that is still lingering within. There is uncertainty, whether a man with gun will appear the next moment. Vasantha is often alarmed by the dead blackness that covers Jaffna soon as twilight arrives, unlike Colombo. Vasantha confesses that the drivers’ rooms in Spice Garden Inn has something prison –like in the air. Though they look harmless. Even rice is felt like eating pebbles. Everything is rough and rubble like. There are remnants of a thirty decade war. Still hanging. Romesh’s diction is enough convincing to outline the struggle to get away from the phantoms of the troublesome past.
Vasantha and his van become significant. Symbolic perhaps. Vasantha travels from Mullativ to Jaffna, to Killinochchi, then to Galle and back again to Jaffna. He is overwhelmed by different encounters of people. Romesh Gunasekara is subtle enough to bring a van down and to portray the whole scene on a journey where some meet with collisions, some gets bumped off and some getting off the ride knowing that where they are heading can be wrong.
Youthful lust is dragged in and left in corners. For Soldiers, it’s fucking in a coffin. There are walls built and jumping over them is hard at times. Love is impossible when it is the enemy. Especially when you try to cross a border which was once built to protect yourself. Walls are walls, human heart is something else. Human heart will never know what a wall is and vice versa. Sometimes keeping one ignorant about ‘some’ things is better than revealing the truth. There is no more war. No enemies. But truth hurts. And hearts can drift sooner.
Romesh knows it.
All over he voices through Vasantha if the past should be kept aside, whether it should be buried and begin building a new future. But the question is, should one know the past to not to let things happen again like it did?
He is vague though. Anyway highways are coming up. No curfew. No roadblocks. Traveling is easier than before. Locals are often making trips to north. Mahen’s father thinks of settling back in Jaffna in his childhood home after spending many years in Colombo. Residues are altered into Guest houses. There is anticipation left for the Nation.
There are roads in both dismal and cheer, poignant and heart rending.
