Abyss…

He is charming and magnetic. We will call him R. His desire and energy to force his way through obstacles is impressive. But he is certainly not graceful or calm as he appears on the outside or as his name suggests. He is restless and trapped. That he is an outsider doesn’t help his cause either as he tries to precariously balance the expectations and weight of three insiders.

Of the three insiders, the first one (B) believes in his competence, his passion and his ability to hustle. They make ambitious plans and are willing to walk the extra mile to reach their target. The second insider (C) is simply mesmerized by his aura of a self-made man, unlike who she is, a privileged inheritor. She showers him with affection and is willing to fund his dreams, provided he makes a tacit acknowledgement of her generosity.

The third insider (J) truly knows his value. She is aware that he is made for a much larger canvas. However, unlike the first two who are willing to compromise, J won’t. She demands his absolute commitment, lest she expose his vulnerability. In doing so, she conveniently chooses to forget her own past and gets entangled in a web of ego and lies.

As the three keep pulling him from either side, it is inevitable that he breaks down. No longer able or willing to garner the strength to walk the tightrope, he decides to let one go, but he makes the wrong choice. He decides to let go of J, believing that the remaining two will let him balance and prosper.

He is mistaken, J won’t let him break free. Her ego won’t allow it. That he is choosing to abandon a project midway is unthinkable. She won’t take a no. They have arguments, sometimes in private and at times in public, threatening his reputation and humiliating him. Pinned to a corner, he agrees for one last conversation in isolation. The conversation turns ugly and ends up sending him to the abyss.

J walks back home, shaken by the turn of events but obviously more concerned for her own safety and reputation than in grief for the lost soul. That the law does not notice anything inappropriate in his disappearance or chooses to look away is a surprisingly telling remark on the way our society functions.

His disappearance does create a brief rift between the three insiders. B explicitly voices his displeasure saying, “R should have been here, not you J”, but he chooses to let go for the larger good, despite facing possible losses in his own venture. C, true to her nature does not lash out but chooses to expose J’s hypocrisy by sharing old stories of deception and deceit. They collectively feel sorry for the unplanned turn of events but choose to move on.

A remorseful J takes a break from work and goes back to her mentor. The mentor consoles her and whitewashes her blunders by saying that few accidents do not define who she is. In a masterstroke the mentor finds personal redemption by taking a moral high ground in a similar past incident. They comfort each other and agree to move on and stay connected.

Feeling resurrected, J walks back and merges effortlessly in the insider party. Having forgotten and forgiven, J & C toast to new beginnings. Just then an old journalist walks in with bits and pieces of tarnished evidence. Will she expose the depth of the insider’s fake facade? Will B’s consciousness make him take a stand against J? Will the law ever dig deep to unravel the truth? Or will they collectively agree to let bygones be bygones. The later seems to be the case.

Under a clever garb of complex emotions and relationships, disguised in fancy attire and fancier locations, is a story of desire, deception and death. It is a silent acknowledgement of a crime and also a desperate attempt for redemption.

What makes me think it is such a metaphorical illustration? A few years back a master storyteller taught me few basic tenets of building a narrative. He said, every story has a hero, the hero has a dream and the hero faces obstacles, the quest of overcoming the obstacles generally makes a good narrative. So I took a longer, no a deeper look at the story and it was obvious that R was not the hero he was the obstacle, the “insiders” were the heroes and then everything was clear. The show must go on, the depth of the camouflage notwithstanding.