Vasantha's Characters In Noontide Toll By Romesh Gunesekera

Sedate Pace of Death

Imagine looking up at the sky and being hit with blazing rays from the sun, squinting your eyes you look for shade. You walk over to a majestic Myristica fragan tree and are engulfed by its shade. Instantly, you feel better. After a while the skies start getting darker and the wind picks up, you feel shivers running down your back. Unsure of your next step you continue standing under the tree surrounded by the cold wind, forgetting the feeling of the warm sunlight. Noontide Toll by Romesh Gunesekera is a novel comprising of short stories, set in post-war Sri Lanka, 2011. These stories work as building blocks to create the protagonist, Vasantha’s character. The short stories “Roadkill” and “Ramparts” effectively use cigarettes

“It is only when you come to a stop like this, in a black night in the middle of nowhere, that things wobble a bit and you wonder about the purpose of the roads” (Gunesekera, 105). The use of the word “black” and the phrase “middle of nowhere” suggest Vasantha’s feeling of melancholy. He then proceeds to sit in his “prison-like” (105) hotel room and contemplates the life he has led. His thoughts and feelings about the war start resurfacing and he tries to “carefully forget” (105). All of these actions depict his destructive depression and his somber solitude. Consequently, he steps outside for a cigarette; “I’m not much of a smoker…I have this urge to fill my lungs with poison.” (106) Calling the cigarette “poison” indicates his awareness of his dismissive actions. His doleful thoughts dragged him to the point of drowning himself in a self-made lake of dark, cold water. He didn’t try to fight the depression; he let it control him. This shows that cigarettes are a symbol of weakness and sorrow for

Vasantha speaks with a soldier he meets near a fort; the soldier comes over with a cigarette between his fingers and asks Vasantha for a lighter, from there on the cigarettes takes on the role of exhibiting the soldier’s concealed emotions. “He stared at his cigarette as though it were a slow-burning fuse” (132). Just like Vasantha, the soldier also views his cigarette as a substitute to subside his forlorn feelings. The soldier fell in love with a girl that is on the other side of the war and managed to kill her brother. He is filled with regret. Before he tells his story to Vasantha he holds the cigarette “delicately between his thumb and two fingers.” (129). This contrast of holding a deadly object in his hands “delicately” parallels how he handles his emotions. He averts his thoughts and tries to move on. He questions marriage by asking “What is it about, really?” (132). This shows his desperate need to try and convince himself that the past is meant to be forgotten. His pessimistic views are further shown as he says things like “It becomes a disaster” (133) and “How can you cross the thing that you have built to protect yourself?” (133). For the soldier the cigarettes are a way to forget the immutable past and move on, to rid his mind of unnecessary thoughts. Just like with Vasantha, the cigarettes here are used as a way to