Rana Dasgupta - Tokyo Cancelled

The men were quiet.

‘Why did they have to die?’

‘Well, what did you expect?’ replied Imran, amused that his audience had become so affected. ‘They were brother and sister. Were they going to get married and live happily ever after?’

‘I suppose not.’

But they were glum.

Then, from the shadowy corner of the bar, a solitary figure began to applaud. None of them had noticed him before.

‘Wonderful! Wonderful! It is years since I have seen a performance like that. You have a fine talent, sir! I would like to see more of what you can do. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a senior executive with an advertising company–as my business card will show. I would like very much to introduce you to some highly influential people I happen to know here in Bombay. I think you may be just what they are looking for. With your permission, of course. Your monster was quite extraordinary. So terrifying, and yet so humorously delivered! I can see a glittering career, sir! There are so few true actors these days.’

And so it was, after a dizzying succession of meetings and auditions, that Imran became the ‘Plaque Devil’ for Colgate toothpaste, in one of the most successful advertising campaigns that India had ever seen. A loathsome, misshapen figure that forced an entry into happy, brightly-lit households, and caused merry dental chaos through his evil schemes until finally repulsed by a laser-filled tube of Colgate, he became a cultural phenomenon such as advertising companies dream of. Children imitated him in the schoolyard, and magazines gave away free Plaque Devil stickers that would adorn the very walls where once graffiti had made shameful innuendos about Imran’s birth. Youngsters found in the character a welcome focus for rebellious feelings, while parents approved of its pedagogic potential and felt that at least their offspring’s unseemly roars and menacing ape-like walk might result in healthier teeth.

This was only the beginning for Imran. Every company wanted him in their advertisements, and soon his much-prized deformity had become the embodiment of every kind of threat to middle-class life: germs, crime, poverty, unwise consumer decisions. Within an astonishingly short time he had become one of the most recognizable faces in India, rivalling Bollywood stars and cricket players for space on cereal packets and soft-drink displays. He was an anti-hero who seemed to complete at a profound level the otherwise beautiful and perfect media pantheon.

But the true extent of his stardom was confirmed when he was cast as the demon Ravana in Star TV’s eight-hour epic, The Ramayana . Screened in its entirety from morning to evening on Independence Day, this was billed as the biggest media event the country had ever seen, with stunning digital effects and a cast of megastars bringing the ancient myths to life in ways never before imagined. The digital manipulation that placed an additional nine heads on Imran’s shoulders (whose unnatural broadness seemed built to receive them) was lifelike and spellbinding, and everyone agreed that it was this character more than any other that turned the show into the immense hit it became. He was an incomparable demon–and a strangely magnetic one. Though women across the country shuddered as the grotesque character abducted Sita from her beautiful royal husband, as he tried to seduce her into betraying Ram and accepting the queenship of his own demon kingdom, they could not help but feel in his entreaties a depth of longing that they had never encountered in their own lives; and in spite of their disgust, despite the fact they knew it could never happen, they were fascinated by the idea that the unwavering Sita might relent and they would see what a passionate and generous lover he might be. When Hanuman and his computer-generated monkey hordes swept down on Lanka and finally defeated the demon, it was not without feelings of confusion that they accepted the restoration of Sita to her rightful husband.

Imran’s life had changed. He had become wealthy and famous, and his cellphone rang constantly with new offers of work and money. But he was not invited to the soirées of the beautiful people, and he remained an outsider to the constant spectacle of Bombay social life. He spent his evenings at the same backstreet bars and dhabas, and avoided the thoroughfares of the city even more assiduously than before. But former friends became distrustful of his sudden wealth and institutionalization, and new ones seemed to have motives he did not like. And in his increasing isolation he began to reflect more and more on the deep yearning that had filled him for as long as he could remember. For some reason, he had a strong feeling that it had something to do with the mysterious figure who came every year on his birthday to give money to his parents.

When Imran’s next birthday came around he positioned himself across the street from the bookshop to wait for the immaculately dressed man who came every year to hand over a packet of money and exchange a few whispered words in the back before hurriedly departing. Though Imran had asked his parents many times who this man was they had never told him the secret.

The man arrived at the end of the morning as expected, and as he bid his surreptitious farewells Imran began to follow him. He walked quickly, conspicuous in his suit, turned two corners, and slid into the back of a black Mercedes that sped off northwards on Marine Drive. Imran stopped a taxi: ‘Follow that car!’

They passed the dilapidated British frontages, manoeuvred through the jam of other taxis, drove over the massive concrete flyovers near Bandra from where you could see a forest of giant movie star hoardings sprouting from the rubble, in whose shade families sought cooler stones to make their life on, passed undulating townships of corrugated iron and tarpaulin reflected in the blind mirror exteriors of the corporate towers, and finally reached the airport.

The man checked in for a business-class seat to Delhi, and Imran bought an economy-class ticket on the same plane. He had put on loose clothes, walked taller, tried to look inconspicuous. No one seemed to notice that Star TV’s Ravana was treading the earth among them.

The sun had almost set by the time Imran’s quarry drew up before the Malhotra mansion on Prithviraj Road. Imran began to ask people, ‘Who lives in that house?’ No one could tell him anything to explain the yearly visits to his family in Bombay.

‘He is a very rich man,’ said a beggar with wild grey hair. ‘And a very cruel one. The rumour says that he keeps his daughter locked up in a tower. She plays wonderful music, but he never lets her out.’

‘Where is the tower?’ asked Imran.

‘It is far from here. I could take you there.’

‘Yes. Please do.’

As Imran took one last look at the house it seemed to him that it must have suffered some kind of catastrophe in the past. Ill-matching materials had been used to repair what looked like giant holes in the roof and walls. He wondered what could have caused such a violent thing in such a genteel street.

Only the entrance of the tower was lit, and it was difficult to see how large it was by night. Imran struck it with his fist. The steel was very thick. He looked at the strange structure in disbelief.

‘He keeps his daughter in here?’

‘Yes. Everyone around here knows about her.’

‘Is she grown-up?’

‘She must be a woman now. No one has seen her for years.’

‘Why did he put her here?’

‘I cannot tell you.’

Just then, their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a piano. It was a sound so astonishing that Imran fell involuntarily to his knees. It was as if ten hands played simultaneously, every hand that of a celestial being, filled with knowledge that humans could not imagine, confident of an eternal beauty that was siphoned from another world into every musical note, causing it to swell beyond itself until it was no longer just music; until scales and trills became glorious light that struck Imran behind the retina, until melodies created holes in the sky that shifted over each other until, as the logic of the music became clear, and for a brief instant only, all the holes lined up in a perfect tunnel that led up into the heavens and ended in that thing that Imran had been longing for all his life–and then the gaps in the sky drifted apart again and disappeared, and the music resolved into its finale.