Maali Alemeida wakes up to find himself in a ghoulish tax office that he later realises is in fact the afterlife. He doesn’t know how he died; he’s a war photographer, gambler and closeted gay man at a time when Columbo is deeply divided and heaving with death squads and hired goons to make people disappear. Maaali is told by the helpers in white coats that he only has seven moons to pass over to the other side. In that time, he wants to find out how he died, contact the man and woman he loves the most, and uncover his hidden cache of photos which will change Sri Lanka. Maali is lured out of the afterlife office by a ghoulish figure cloaked in garbage bags. They ride the wind (the ghost form of transport) to the Beira Lake where two “garbage” men – Balal and Kottu – attempt to hack up his body, but they fail to weigh it down and they have to return to the Hotel Leo, with their associate, Drivermaali where they work to figure out what to do with the rest of the remains. The ghost figure, Sena, explains he used to a communist JVP activist and was killed by the same death squad.
Meanwhile, Maali’s mother, best friend Jaki and (secret) boyfriend DD (who is Jaki’s cousin) are at the police station, bribing Detective Cassim and ASP Ranchagoda into investigating Maali’s disappearance. Cassim and Ranchagoda visit the garbage men Balal and Kottu who are based in the Hotel Leo, a casino where Maali was a regular. They claim to have found the body amongst the garbage. We learn Maali had a meeting the day he died with CNTR which turns out to be a charitable front for The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Elsa who runs CNTR bribes the detectives, explaining that Maali took some very valuable photos of a Tamil massacre in ’83 which she wants to find.
The detectives and Elsa search the apartment where DD, Jaki and Maali live and then they attempt to search Maali’s mother’s home. The detectives, DD and Jaki discover a of box of photos, and DD’s father, Stanley (who is a government minister) is called to scare the detectives away. He rings the minister for justice, who arrives and decides to take the photos for himself because they are very sensitive; one of which shows his involvement in the ’83 Tamil massacre, the other shows a meeting between weapons dealer, an army Major and a Tamil activist looking to usurp the current leader of the LTTE – indicating that the government is helping terrorist organisations access weapons. This photo was taken on a harrowing trip to a slaughtered village. It’s slowly revealed the Maali was a photographer for all sides of the conflict, working with everyone from the Associated Press, the political activists, the army (where he was fired for being gay) to weapons dealers. These sensitive photos are burned along with Maali’s body in a big cover-up.
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