A week of fun in the wilderness, celebrating life – Hakuna Matata!……Shanthi

When I started on this amazing tour, I remember being as excited as a schoolgirl on a school excursion and it turned out to be just that. I came back feeling like a live wire, privileged to have set foot in such a brilliant continent, with the warm and fuzzy feeling that if I have such a great bunch of friends, then my life must be great! Every time I feel like I need a pep up, all I need to do is think about it all over again.

A few impressions will remain in my mind forever – the grandeur, the beauty and the balance of life in the Masai Mara, the friendly people and smart children of Kenya, the non-stop chattering and fun, singing and dancing in the company of friends who took me back to my youth. And how can I forget our funny, serious and some not so serious discussions on the long drives J

I felt exhilarated in the wide open spaces of the Masai Mara, with its majestic animals, big and small – the wiry cheetah, the chubby zebras munching away, the funny wildebeests and warthogs, the fierce hippos of Mara river, the graceful giraffes and dainty deer and the tawny lions and the elephant herd, the efficient vultures all balanced in a dance of life, not at all threatened by us. It made me realize that I am such a small dot in the big scheme of things. It also made me feel so much at peace, how I wish our worlds were like that too! Raja and I were so awed that we stopped taking photos after a while. We were so near that we even saw the look on the cheetah’s face, when it was starting on its hunt!

The smart drivers and the intelligent kids who even knew where India was, the highly articulate girl who claimed to live on the milk and blood of the cows in the village, and then turned up as the chef flipping omelets the next morning! The confused faces of the Masai dancers when our guys interrupted their jumping dance music with our ‘vallamkali’ song. But it was the open, warm smile of the girl who was making dosas for us at the Masai Mara camp that will remain with me as ‘Kenya’.

The highlight of the trip was still the company of my dear friends. The energy on the morning walks, with Pradeep singing somewhere on Smule, the fun of dressing up in ‘same same’ colours for the grand photo (including getting scolded roundly for starting it all and then not really conforming and having to apologise profusely), our stylish ‘turban’ day, our beads craze and ‘Masai Midukki’, the oh so sweet ‘Jambo Sana’ and the Thamizh song which thrilled Raja no end. All our friends participating so enthusiastically in our ‘Past, Present, Future’ conversations, remembering ‘Hope’, not forgetting the ‘Anilisms’, how we discussed our trials and our triumphs openly, and our valiant attempts to define our own success in front of our kids. ‘The Kerala House in Mumbai’, ‘The innocent girl at college’ and ‘Waiting in the library’ all came across as poignant R.K. Narayan type of vignettes to me, maybe they can all write it out as blogs ! Let this cheeky smiley remind my friends of our conversations !

We heard about our kids’ concerns and they heard about ours. This brood of ours may be better off than us because they don’t need to be so concerned about earning a livelihood as we were. But we realize that they have their own pressures and ambitions. Media opens them up to the world and the world to them but it also means that they have much more to think about seriously than we ever did. Hope we can somehow take this good attempt at conversations with them forward in some way.

We were so happy when Ninan showed up, like a surprise gift-wrapped package for us. We were as happy as kids to get our gifts from Satguru, and then we danced our way to the end of the trip. The fact that we all sang and danced together at our ‘kalashakkottu’ showed that we were all so comfortable in our group! Raja always says that our group is so unique, we somehow come together in a very warm way. I think it is because we really celebrate our friendships and ourselves without any hang-ups! And the fact that the whole trip went by without a single argument between Raja and myself is a proof point to how efficiently the trip was organized and how happy and free we were with our friends, on the trip!

We want to leave this blog with one thought. Apparently, humans have this thing called ‘free will’ that makes us different and better than animals. We saw the animals live in peace, in a delicate balance on the plains of Masai Mara.  Do we humans really use our so unique and valuable free will to make the world a better place? Or have we made it worse? With CETAA Hope, maybe we are doing our own little bit to make it better. Let us continue our conversations, I am sure we can do more.

Eagerly looking forward to our next get together.