Lin Arranges for Kano’s Bear Handler to Stay with Him in Custody

Lin’s arrangement for Kano’s bear-handlers to stay with the bear in custody is a small act of mercy made possible by recognizing what the prisoners actually need. Unable to free them or Kano, Lin instead helps secure permission for them to share his cell: a practical concession that answers their fear of leaving a lifelong companion alone behind bars.

The story at the gate

Lin arrives at the police compound with Prabaker after hearing that a friend has been jailed. He expects to find Abdullah, but at the metal gate he recognizes two blue-skinned bear-handlers who had previously brought Kano to the slum at Abdullah’s request. Lin has already paid the watchman fifty rupees to approach the gate. The late-night crowd of men gathered there falls quiet as the watchman calls him forward, and the handlers clutch the bars, speaking with an urgency Lin cannot follow.

Prabaker translates their account. Near Navy Nagar, the men had found other bear-handlers with a thin, distressed female bear. They said that the animal’s handlers had beaten her with a whip and continued even as she cried. The blue-skinned men confronted them and told them to stop; insults and pushing escalated into a fight. Their account draws a large audience: prisoners leave rooms along the crowded corridor until more than a hundred men have gathered to listen. The watchman, too, becomes absorbed in the unfolding story, and the listeners respond with shouts of sympathy and approval.

The fight had initially gone against the blue-skinned handlers. Then Kano joined in just before the police arrived, striking the other men and their friends and bringing the brawl to a decisive end. The handlers were arrested for breach of the peace. The dispute over the abused bear had become a police matter, and Kano’s intervention had made him part of it. A policeman was injured in the scuffle, the watchman explains, so the matter is beyond his authority to settle informally.

From release to companionship

Lin tells the handlers he cannot bail them out or bribe them free. Their rapid Hindi is unintelligible to him, and he initially misunderstands the purpose of their appeal. Prabaker clarifies that they are not asking him to secure their own release: Kano has also been arrested, and they are worried about him. This changes the problem Lin is trying to solve. The handlers are concerned not with escaping custody but with preventing their bear from facing it alone.

Lin and Prabaker go downstairs to see Kano. In a dark, otherwise empty ground-floor cell, the bear sits chained by the neck and paws, the chains running through a metal grille. His back rests against the wall, his lower legs are splayed in front of him, and his face appears profoundly distressed. As Lin watches, Kano lets out a long sigh. Prabaker, standing behind Lin, begins to sob; then he moves past the watchman and embraces the bear, pressing his head against Kano’s and stroking his fur. Lin tells the watchman in Marathi that he had hugged Kano first, a few weeks earlier. Their earlier contact gives the visit a personal history, while Prabaker’s embrace makes the bear’s loneliness immediately visible.

Negotiating an exception

The guards cannot release the handlers or Kano, and discussion confirms that there is nothing to be done about bail. Lin and Prabaker return to the gate and explain that they cannot help the men get out. The handlers understand. What they want is permission to enter the cell and keep Kano company. As Prabaker explains, Kano has never spent a night alone since he was a baby; the men fear he will be frightened, sleep badly, and cry from loneliness. They also worry that he will feel ashamed to be in jail, because they regard him as a fine citizen.

One handler repeats the thought that Prabaker translates as the principle that a man must love his bear. The repetition does not remove the practical obstacle, but it gives the request its plain measure: the handlers seek neither an escape nor a reversal of the arrest, only the chance to care for Kano in confinement. Prabaker responds with tears, grasping the gate as the man tries to make himself understood through repetition and visible distress.

The guards can grant this request without overturning the rules that prevent release. Prabaker conducts an energetic negotiation with the watchmen and other guards, pleading and bargaining until they agree on a payment of two hundred rupees, roughly twelve American dollars. Lin hands over the money; a moustached watchman unlocks the gate, and the group descends the steel stairs. The decision does not undo the arrest or the conditions of custody. It changes who must endure them alone.

Reunion in the cell

When the handlers’ voices reach Kano, he rises, then is dragged forward onto all fours by his chains. He sways his head and paws at the ground as the men hurry to him. Kano pushes his snout into their armpits and nuzzles into their long, dreadlocked hair, sniffing their familiar scent. The handlers answer with affectionate caresses and try to ease the strain of the heavy chains. The cell remains locked, but for a moment it holds a reunion rather than an isolated prisoner.

Lin and Prabaker leave the handlers with Kano and walk out of the police compound. The cell door slams behind them, its sound echoing across the empty parade ground; Lin feels a shiver as they depart. Outside, Prabaker praises what Lin has done and repeats the handlers’ lesson. In the taxi on Colaba Causeway, he keeps looking at Lin, then places his hand over his heart. His gesture gives the episode a quiet ending: the act’s importance lies not in winning release, which was impossible, but in making room for attachment within a system of confinement. Lin’s help turns a request for companionship into an arrangement the guards can allow, while the handlers’ insistence that Kano not be left alone makes care, rather than rescue, the scene’s decisive achievement.