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.
Maali witnesses all of this and more; in the underworld he discovers many ghosts are stuck between the light and the living. His acquaintance, Sena, is determined to rally an army to take revenge on the government death squads who have wiped out so many of them. Maali also discovers mystical creatures in the afterlife such as the demon who shadows the minister for justice and the Mahakali, a shadowy evil beast with fangs that eats souls and stores them in its belly for a thousand moons.
A blind man called Crow Man (who can hear the dead) taught Sena that by praying to the Mahakali, one can gain powers such as the ability to whisper to the living. Maali tries to use Crow Man to contact Jaki and tell her where she can find the negatives for the photographs which were lost. The plan fails and so one of the helpers, Dr Ranee, who has been overseeing Maali’s transition in the afterlife, tells Maali he can visit people in their dreams. There Maali visits DD and Jaki and tells her where to find the negatives. Jaki finds them and eventually stages a full exhibition, in the process of this DD comes across some compromising pictures of men and realises the Maali had a wandering eye. Maali finds the exhibition is more popular with the dead than it is the living, but he’s glad that his photos are out there.
Sena forms a plan to take revenge on the people who killed him and many others. He makes a deal with the Mahakali to mobilise an army of ghosts. Together they cause a van carrying Balal, Kottu and Drivermalli to crash. Balal and Kottu die and their souls are fed to the Mahakali, but Drivermalli is spared. Sena and his army then descend on the “Palace”, a government black-site where enemies of the state are tortured. It appears Sena has been visiting Drivermalli who has worked his way up from chauffeur to one of the goons who help the government make people disappear. The plan is for Drivermalli to blow himself up whilst key players such as a high-ranking army official, the minister for justice and the government’s best torturer, known as “the mask” are all present. Before this happens, Maali visits the Palace and finds Jaki has been taken – they intend to torture her to find out where the negatives are. Maali comes to Sena in desperation, he needs to communicate with DD or Stanley. He finds Stanley with the Crow Man and manages to get his assistant to tell him that Jaki has been taken to the palace. Worried this might not cut it, Maali ends up selling his soul to the Mahakali to gain the power to whisper to the living. He flies to the palace and whispers to Cassim, who is keeping an eye on Jaki, and persuades him to take Jaki outside where Stanley and DD are waiting with a car. Stanley instructs DD to take Jaki home and he goes into the Palace to confront the minister for justice – however, despite Maali’s protestations for the innocents in the building, Drivermalli detonates his suicide jacket, killing everyone in the room with the exception of the minister for justice whose demon managed to usher him into the bathroom while Malli protested. As a thank you, the demon stops the Mahakali, who he recognises to be Talduwe Somarama.
Maali flees the Mahakali and manages to jump into the river leading him to the other side or “the light” just in time. Whilst he’s down there, he finally remembers how he died; that day he had decided to leave war photography behind and follow DD to San Francisco. Maali left a note on DD’s racket saying “Come to the Leo Bar at 11 p.m. tonight. I will have news. Love, Maal.”. As a last hurrah Maali is having sexual relations with a barman on the roof, but then Stanley appears from the shadows with Balal and Kottu. Stanley has found out about Maali’s relationship with DD, and attacks him, and get Balal and Kottu to dispose of the body.
Maali reaches the afterlife and is faced with a choice, he decides to become a helper, ferrying spirits onto the next stage of the afterlife. After a few thousand moons and a chat with a dead leopard (animals have souls too) Maali decides it’s time to be reborn.