Kano escapes captivity and is transported in disguise

Kano escapes captivity and is transported in disguise in a rescue operation that turns a bear’s attachment to his handlers into both the cause of his escape and the means of hiding it. A policy intended to stop cruelty to dancing bears sets the authorities against Kano and the men who care for him; once they flee together, Lin and the slum community devise a way to move them through the city without making the bear’s presence obvious. The plan’s improbable solution is to present Kano as Ganesha, carried through the streets on a handcart in the middle of a growing devotional procession.

Capture and Escape

The crisis begins with the Wildlife Protection Authority’s policy against cruelty to dancing bears. Kano’s handlers, whom Lin’s account describes as loving him like a brother, insist that they would never hurt him; the policy nevertheless leads wildlife officers to capture Kano and take him to an animal jail. The conflict is not presented as a response to Kano having harmed anyone. Rather, the attempt to enforce a general rule separates him from the people who care for him, despite their bond.

Kano’s distress at the separation is matched by the handlers’ distress outside the jail. Two watchmen, upset by the men’s crying, go outside and beat them with lathis. Seeing his handlers being beaten, Kano breaks down his cage and escapes. The men then fight the wildlife officers, free Kano, and flee with him. Their escape converts the authorities’ attempt to contain the bear into a joint flight by the bear and the people whose treatment of him had become the immediate issue.

The group hides in the same slum hut Lin once used as his home. Their proposed route is from the slum to Nariman Point, where a truck and a willing driver are waiting to take Kano and the handlers away. The authorities named as searching for them include the Maharashtra police, the Border Security Force, and the Wildlife Protection Authority; a reward is offered for the fugitives, including Kano. Getting the group across the city, rather than merely out of the animal jail, becomes the practical problem.

Planning a Disguise

Lin and the handlers consider how to move Kano without drawing attention to him. A small wheeled platform is workable: the handlers agree that Kano will sit on a hawker’s cart, and that ropes can steady him if the need for fastening is explained to him. The plan depends on their familiarity with his behavior and their ability to secure him without treating restraint as a substitute for trust.

Lin proposes covering the seated bear with parts of the large Ganesh sculptures he has seen in Rakeshbaba’s workshop. The pieces are made of papier-mâché, hollow, and light enough to fit over Kano; silk and flower garlands could finish the disguise. Johnny Cigar recognizes the idea’s central advantage: Kano can be presented not as a hidden animal but as an image of Ganesha on a devotional trolley. The disguise therefore relies on what the street is prepared to see. A religious figure moving through the city can attract attention while making the bear inside it less likely to be recognized.

When the group enters the lamplit workshop, the disguise is complete. A huge elephant head sits above a pink, round-bellied body with attached arms; light-blue silk surrounds the figure’s base, and flowers conceal the join between head and body. Kano’s movement unsettles the illusion: when he turns his head toward a voice, the figure seems to look back. The onlookers, including Lin, flinch, and the children retreat among the adults. The transformation is thus practical but not merely cosmetic: the bear’s living presence makes the statue appear momentarily animate, while the crowd’s reaction shows how closely the disguise depends on keeping that movement within the image of a god.

The Procession Through the City

Lin agrees to proceed, and a knot of supporters rolls the cart out of the slum. After passing the World Trade Centre Construction Site and entering the residential boulevard toward Back Bay, the group begins chanting. People near the cart push or pull it; Lin and Johnny Cigar join the chant from the edge of the procession. As it gathers pace, the supporters’ responses become more vigorous. Some appear to forget that the procession is a cover for smuggling a bear and take part with the conviction of pilgrims.

The disguise becomes more effective as the procession grows. Near Back Bay, wedding musicians rehearsing in an open field fall in behind the group and play a devotional song. Children and adults leave the footpaths and join the chanting, swelling the crowd to more than a hundred. Kano sways on the trolley and turns his head toward the noise. The crowd’s devotion is genuine enough to give the passage a double character: it is both a public religious spectacle and the cover for an illicit escape.

The procession passes a group of policemen, who stand still and watch it go by. The scene gives the escape its narrow margin: the bear is moving through public streets, but the gathered people, music, and devotional form make the unusual procession harder to read as a smuggling attempt. Lin also notices the dogs’ presence and absence across the route. He first remarks that there are no pariah dogs in the slum streets, recalling their violent response to Kano on his earlier visit. Later, as the crowd and barking intensify, the dogs are drawn beyond their usual territory; when Lin pays the bandmaster to lead the musicians away toward Marine Drive, the dogs turn back toward the shadows.

The Diversion and Intended Handoff

As the procession nears Nariman Point, Lin sees the tower of the Oberoi Hotel and worries that the wedding band will remain with them. He presses a bundle of notes into the bandmaster’s hand and directs him to turn away and march along Marine Drive. The band separates from the cart’s route, playing dance music as it goes toward the ocean drive. Most of the crowd follows the musicians, and the dogs retreat with them. Lin’s payment does not end the procession so much as redirect its noisy, visible part, leaving the cart to continue toward the truck’s secluded stopping place.

The account then records the arrival of Abdullah, Salman Mustaan, Sanjay, and Farid beside Salman Mustaan’s car in a wide parking bay. Lin asks Johnny Cigar whether he is all right and whether he can take over from there. The truck had been arranged to carry Kano and the handlers away, but this scene ends at the approach to the handoff rather than establishing what happens after it. The operation has brought the disguised bear from the slum through the city and close to the waiting transport; its final success is not shown in this passage.

Significance

The escape is driven by reciprocal attachment. Kano breaks out after witnessing the beating of the handlers, and they risk fighting the officers to flee with him. Their care for him is not incidental to the action: it explains why the group forms, why the bear can be managed on the trolley, and why the rescuers refuse to treat him as an object that can simply be hidden or transported without regard to his trust.

The Ganesha disguise makes the rescue depend on collective participation as well as ingenuity. Papier-mâché, silk, flowers, a hawker’s cart, a paid diversion, and a crowd’s expanding chant each solve a different part of the practical problem. At the same time, the procession exposes the gap between its public appearance and its purpose: the people around the cart can sincerely experience a pilgrimage even as their movement shields an escape. The episode’s comedy and suspense therefore rest on the same device. Kano is conspicuous as a sacred figure and concealed as a fugitive bear, while Lin’s improvised plan works only so long as the city keeps looking at the spectacle rather than through it.