Into The Future Of....Grandparenting!

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. Earlier in the week I overheard something very disturbing (modern day flats have paper thin walls) and so I actually wanted to do a post on what constitutes a happy marriage and should women stay in marriages where fights are the rule than the exception...But by God's grace the concept of abuse and adultery is so alien to my own marriage that it was hard for me to process the fight we all overheard and put down something in a post without sounding too preachy. After all, it's SO easy to give advice...Hence I have decided to shelve it for the time being but it is still percolating in my head. So get ready to smell the coffee one day soon.
I was blessed by the fact that both my grandmothers had attended my wedding and I asked my parents to send me a wedding day picture with both of them, as my wedding albums are back home in India. I started thinking about how much our grandparents had done for us, how vested they had been in our lives and what fantastic role models they were. Be it punctuality, neatness, cooking skills, thrift, stoicism, they had it all...The tag line I gave the picture I put up on FaceBook was ' In their constant hard work, lie the roots of our success.' Our grandmothers may never have worked outside the four walls of their houses but the amount of work they did for their large joint families within more than compensated for it. And then, since I had a lot of time on my hands yesterday, I began thinking about how future adults, who as babies, held cell phones and Ipads before they held pencils, would be like as grandparents, in the very distant future. How would future generations see their grandparents, considering the fact that ALL the children I know today (tomorrow's parents and grandparents) are hooked onto some device or the other? And most are already adept at taking selfies. My own grandmothers thought twice before making even a phone call from a land line! And so in a span of five minutes I wrote down this poem from a grandchild's perspective, maybe forty years down the line...Forms of social media and Apps may change, but the essence of what I'm trying to say will remain the same. This imaginary child is at that age where he or she doesn't have access to the Internet yet but understands what is happening around him or her. Once the child has net access, he or she wouldn't even bother about what the grandparents are doing or crave for their attention...



All I see when I look at Granny,
Is that she's constantly on FB.
Grandpa's frazzled and all in a flutter,
Guess what's not loading today? It's Twitter!

All day Granny takes pictures that don't make her look fat,
So she can finally share a few on SnapChat!
In their bathroom there's a leaky tap,
Who cares? They're too busy on WhatsApp!

My toddler sibling will soon into the coffee table ram,
They're clueless, as they are comparing followers on InstaGram.
They are both deeply onto the Internet hooked,
When was it last, at their grand kids, they actually looked?

At times when the net is down,
Granny, at the screen, terribly does frown.
But then she actually talks to me,
Into the long gone past, she does see.
And pulling me onto her creaking knees,
Tells me about HER grandmothers, who were like busy bees.

They would actually for their grand kids COOK,
And occasionally read to them from a BOOK!
Sometimes they'd even bake a CAKE,
And jars of pickles themselves MAKE.

They knitted sweaters, embroidered flowers,
And in their gardens created pretty bowers,
Over their homes they had control and powers,
But of course they weren't surrounded by mobile towers!

She said that long ago there was a time,
When granddads trekked to buy veggies plump and fine.
And hand picked fruits that tasted divine...
Today, at the click of a button, it's all ordered online...

The net is back and I'm dumped down from her lap,
She's eager to get back to her App.
Granny logs in quick as a flash,
She's desperate to see if her last update made a splash!

I wanted to hear the story of how her sibling almost choked,
I wanted to know about the rainy day when she got soaked.
I wanted to hear about her school days,
And how she had acted in many plays.

I guess I'll have to wait until the net is down,
In the meantime I'll just play with this colourful clown.
That Granny's Granny had for her made,
Back in the era before underground internet cables were laid...

Of Hirsute Heads and Hacked Hair

A couple of days before it was time for my son to go back to school, I sent him to the barber with my husband, for a spiffy hair cut. I belong to the old, colonial school of thought where back to school for boys means super short hair. I've always been around men with really short hair all my life. My paternal grandfather and my father were in the army. My father in law was a senior scientific officer in the Ordnance Factory and dealt with quality control of Higher Explosives. Can you imagine any of these men pushing locks of hair off their faces before shooting a gun or testing a bomb? My husband, although in the corporate sector, in keeping with his disciplined defence upbringing, has very regular hair cuts.
And for almost all schools in India, the 'British army style crew cut' rule remains unchanged even today, although it has been almost seventy years since we became independent.When my son was in school in India in Upper Kindergarten and Grade One, if he did not have a haircut every three weeks, before the fourth week was up, there would be a note in red pen, in his diary, from his teacher with just two words, 'CUT HAIR'. Traditionally in Indian culture, our young students had to shave off their hair completely in the student phase of their lives, with just one long strand of hair dangling from the crown of their heads. The theory I've expounded to my son is that because boys are SO distracted all the time, it's easier for their brain to absorb knowledge if the head is shaved or the hair is at least short enough to catch glimpses of the scalp! He is yet to bite this particular bullet... He is turning thirteen next month so my words are no longer written in indelible, golden chalk for him..And because the school here doesn't have any hair length rule, he does feel like the odd man out for the first few days after his hair cut. That was the reason why he went around with a hoodie, with the hood covering his head, for the first couple of days after the visit to the barber. Mercifully Nairobi has very cool summers so the jacket wasn't out of place at all.
But his attitude against the compulsory hair cut took me back many decades, to the time my sister and I were in Elementary school and barely three and five years old respectively. Since my Dad was in the Indian Army, long hair for officers and soldiers alike (no lady officers in the army then) was, is and I hope always will be, anathema. So the army barber used to make a monthly visit with his kit and set up shop on our terrace and do the needful for my Dad. Both my sister and I are blessed with hair that grows really fast and is very thick too. So after our Dad, it used to be our turn. No amount of protest and fat tears rolling down our cheeks helped and we were almost scalped every month because my Dad believed girls looked 'smart' if they had short hair. My mother had beautiful knee length hair but he made her chop it off before they were married. Today, of course, no independent, educated girl in India, if she is in her right senses, would allow her fiance or husband to dictate the length of her hair but the early seventies was a different era and the majority of Indian girls were traditionally brought up to please their husbands.
To come back to my sister and me, being brought up on a steady diet of Hans Christian Anderson's Illustrated Fairy Tales, with Rapunzel of the long, golden tresses as the main course, surrounded by Indian girls of the late seventies and the early eighties, most of whom were growing their hair, this monthly ordeal was nothing but sheer torture and it was, we felt, a clear violation of one of our fundamental rights as girls: The Right To Long Hair. So furious did we get during those early years that whenever we had a brand new doll, the first thing both of us used to do was to chop off her hair, so that it resembled ours. Dolls, in the India of yore, had white skin, blue eyes and long, blond hair. I think the prototype had been imported from the United States, no Made In China tag then and used to be mass manufactured by canny businessmen. So finally the only thing we had in common with our dolls was the length of our hair! My mother collects 'memories in tangible form', which for me, is euphemism for junk. I am sure she has a couple of those dolls lying around and so I will ask her to send me a 'hacked hair' picture of one of the dolls and then I will post it here... This hacking of hair habit continued, for us as well as our dolls, except that Mom began taking us to a Ladies' Parlour as we got older, (the Army barber no longer being deemed fit for the Major Saab's daughters' hair), until I got my first Barbie doll as a gift, when I was close to becoming a teenager. I think my angst and ire had been vented by then and I had resigned myself to my short hair because that Barbie is in my daughter's room in India now, with her hair still intact. Yes, it's called the 'transference of memories' from my mother's house to mine...
And then, one day, I had a daughter too, who by the age of five and a half, was desperate to grow her hair. We were in hot, humid, Dar Es Salaam then, I had my hands full with my new born son and so my answer was a firm NO! For the next four years she begged, cried and pleaded some more but I was firm. Every year when we left our home town after the holidays to go back to Dar, I got her hair cut especially short on the very the day we were leaving, to save myself time and money for the next few months. My husband's sisters used to come to bid us goodbye and there used to be a long litany of complaints to them, against me, by my daughter. They consoled her and at that particular moment, probably looked upon me as the evil daughter in law who, annually, almost tonsured and tortured their darling bother's even more darling daughter, but I did not budge. Actually I was probably considered worse than the original witch in Rapunzel. Not only did I not let my Rapunzel go for sleepovers, I did not even allow her to grow her hair!
Finally it was time for us to move back to India and my daughter was about to turn ten. I gave in at last, on the condition that she oil and shampoo and comb her own hair regularly. I was willing to plait it, as Indian schools do not allow girls to leave their hair loose during school hours. In no time she had beautiful hip length hair which was the talk of the town! The reason was that India had changed and unlike in my days, today it is uncommon to see young girls with such long hair...The tables have turned and today I beg her NOT to cut her hair...She did get it trimmed to waist level last summer though. Here's a picture.

His 'hacked' hair

After much back and forth discussion about his hair length, I told him the debate had been postponed until the time he got his first college degree! You see I'm giving his head, with it's half inch hair, plenty of time to absorb knowledge till long locks cover it in the distant future.....! 

Gyaan Giving: Students, Ingest With A Large Pinch Of Chaat Masala!

Gyaan: The quintessential Indian word for knowledge or, as in this case, advice.
Chaat: A sweet and sour and spicy street food encompassing many types. Being Indian, we prefer to make even our street food at home, more often than not! Chaat Masala is the spice powder that is liberally sprinkled over it all and all Indian children, at some point or the other, have swiped chaat masala from the kitchen, behind their mothers' backs, and blissfully licked it straight off their palms...I hope my students enjoy my 'gyaan' for them and find it as 'chatpata' as the stolen masala!
Chatpata: Adjective derived from the word chaat or was the noun derived from the adjective?
This poem is aimed specifically at my current 10th standard batch. I've taught them the nuances of the English language since the time I returned to India from Tanzania, when they were in 3rd grade and I had just inaugurated my Academy in Pune! (And most of them had been my mother's students since their kindergarten years...) So it's been close to eight years now and after I moved to Kenya, even the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean did not prevent them from signing up for my brain wave: Class on Skype, homework on WhatsApp! Their parents have always shown complete faith in me and my 'off the beaten track' attempts at inculcating a strong language and reading base in these children. For this, I will always remain truly grateful. Though I am actually qualified to teach University level students, I can honestly say I have enjoyed  teaching these wide eyed kids, who then became brusque teenagers, more than I ever enjoyed teaching my 'know it all' college students. Eight years is a long time and each one of these students and their mothers honestly feel like family...I am going to miss you all in class, both real and virtual!
As they inch closer to their final exams, the I.C.S.E at the end of their 10th grade, which in India, marks the end of school life and also brings them to a fork in the road where they have to choose between further studies in Humanities or Science or Commerce. This one exam, held for a gamut of subjects, will determine which college they get into and also which stream, if they haven't decided yet.
The current issues in India among students are the mobile phones glued to their hands, their desire to be constantly in touch with each other on social media and also gaming on line. The sudden explosion in Internet availability, speed and quality has left parents helpless and students completely distracted. So I suggest taking a complete sabbatical (if you don't know this word yet, please open the dictionary now!) from all electronic devices for the next two months, until the I.C.S.E (Indian Certificate Of Secondary Education) is over. I promise you, you will not regret it. I've written this poem for you all, to drive home my point further. Here's wishing you the best of luck and a great new year!
The first line is from Lewis Carroll's poem ' The Walrus And The Carpenter, which I studied for MY I.C.S.E ! If we had had Internet and I would have been on line at that time for a large part of my day, I doubt I would have even remembered that I had studied this poem, forget about still knowing a great many of the lines...


"The time has come," the Walrus said," To talk of many things."
Of going off FB, Instagram and SnapChat,
All those ways that may just curb your wings!
Let it not happen, that just six months down the line,
You wish you hadn't ignored your Mom's 'constant whine'.
For Standard 10, you are now in the 'home stretch',
I know giving up social media feels like a wretch.
It's SO easy to get distracted,
But in direct proportion, your marks WILL get contracted!
Research proves you cannot focus even when finally offline,
For the brain to resettle, it takes quite a bit of time.
If you don't believe me, go to Google and see,
But ONLY after your I.C.S.E!

It is only your education that will stand you in good stead,
On the rough and really rocky road ahead.
Friends, both girls and boys, right now will only your time waste,
So don't ignore your parents' words in a haste.
Friends are great at moral and verbal support,
But chatting with them now will only spoil that I.C.S.E report!
We all know that the Indian system is based completely on rote,
So in the next two months be sure to cram everything down your throat.
To higher, better education, this is your passport.
Like it or not, this is the foundation of your life's fort.

Right now you may think you have the worst mother on this earth,
And of friends adding fuel to this fire there is no dearth.
But when Mommy asks you to study,
And tells you not to waste time with your buddy,
Trust me, she really wants for you, the best,
Just for two months, ignore all the rest.
When you get your I.C.S.E report, there should be no regret,
By then, it really will be too late to fret.
So take the bull firmly by the horns now,
And don't, before the internet or television, bow.
When you are studying, your phone should be really far,
Do you really want it to your future mar?

Your parents will stand by you till the end of their lives,
So, why against them, right now, sharpen your knives?
We aren't in the U.S where students get scholarships or, by themselves, hefty loans take,
In India, your parents began education savings before you cut your first birthday cake!
They are the ones paying for your expensive education,
As well as your fun filled, post I.C.S.E vacation...
You are not adults yet, so it's not too much to ask you to your online passwords with them share,
It is only because they are the ones that REALLY care....
Also remember you will ALWAYS have your parents' unconditional love and support,
No matter how TERRIBLE your I.C.S.E report.
All the more reason to just give it your best shot,
So eventually you will be happy with the marks you got!
To God you can safely leave the rest,
Once you have done your very, very best!


And one day, when YOUR kids tell you to 'Just Chill',
After you've repeatedly told them not to on line time kill,
You will thank God and your parents for an education that pays the hefty Internet bill!

Last Christmas (Eve) She Gave Them Her Heart....

And the very next day God took her away....
Today marks one whole year since my son's friend lost his then eight year old sister. When we attended the memorial service held here in Nairobi in our school auditorium, before the family left for the funeral in the United States, I was stunned to see how much had been accomplished by their close friends and the Church family, in less than forty eight hours after the beloved child had gone to God.
A collage of beautiful photographs greeted us at the entrance to the auditorium. Pictures of the adorable little girl with her parents, with each sibling and with extended family made it seem so hard to believe she was gone. So lifelike were the pictures that I felt she would pop out of the photos and start bouncing around on an auditorium seat in a minute, which was where I had seen her last, just two and a half weeks earlier, at the school Christmas concert.
Her father had put together a lovely video of shots from her short life of eight years. It truly was a labour of love and did not leave a dry eye in the jam packed auditorium. Her former teacher and family friends shared some anecdotes about her, a couple of which will remain with me forever.
We live within a stone's throw from their house and our houses are very close to the UNHCR- United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees. This means there are always long lines of refugees queueing up outside the office, near the road we all use. I had often spotted a lady with a baby and a toddler on the road that connects two sides of the highway, across the road from UNHCR, that our houses are close to. It's a tricky, steep curve to negotiate and my first thought always was " I hope she keeps a tight hold on that toddler. The last thing we need in this country is to get involved in an accident." And the next thoughts were, " Why do they continue having kids when they don't even have a shelter over their heads and there's no food in their bellies?"
The little girl too spotted this family on her way to and fro from school with her Mom and siblings. And while my thoughts were selfish and irritable ones, hers were far more noble. She asked her mother to pack food for this family, so she could give it to them before Christmas, last year. And so, before school closed or just around a week  before her accident, they distributed packets of food to the refugee mother and children.
The other incident was shared by a church member. The family had attended the Christmas Eve service at their Church on 24th December. All the Sunday School children were given little red soap stone hearts. This little girl, already having received her own, was standing at the door to help distribute the hearts as the children left the church. The lady with her realized that more children than expected had attended the service and they were fast running out of hearts. So she quickly turned to the child beside her and asked, "Anna, can you give me your heart?"
This lady told us during the memorial service, that Anna did not demur and there was not a minute's hesitation. In an instant, Anna had whipped out her soap stone heart and had handed it over to the next child leaving the service. How many eight year olds do you know who would have given away a gift that they had received just minutes ago? In less than twenty four hours, they told us, after her fall, she had cardiac failure, even as she fought for her life. Strange and unbelievable are the ways of life....I salute her parents who inculcated such marvellous values in her, in the short time that God had chosen to grant them with their little girl.
My biggest lesson came from Anna's father. He actually thanked God for having given them forty eight hours to prepare themselves and to say good bye to their darling daughter. He spoke of the two nights spent in hospital, talking to her, singing to her, just willing for her to wake up. But that was not to be.
This lesson stood me in good stead when, last September, my own daughter left for medical college in India but was back in Nairobi within a month because the Supreme Court in India had cancelled all medical admissions of international students, citing a lack of a newly introduced entrance exam, which these students had categorically been told earlier, in writing, was not applicable to them. While we did file cases in the Supreme Court Of India, together with other Non Resident Indian parents, (which we subsequently lost) because the cancellation of a hard and competitively earned admission was truly an unfair decision, no part of me regretted that my daughter was back with me for a few months more. It meant my daughter losing an academic year but what's a year when I know my friends would give anything and everything, in a heart beat, to have their own daughter back...
When I saw Anna's date of birth on the memorial program, I was flabbergasted because on that very day, 17th July, 2007, I had lost a very close and dear school friend, a brilliant doctor, in a horrible road accident in my home town in India. She left behind two very young daughters. Unimaginable are the ways that connect us to people we feel a bond with...
. On the 27th of January 2016, in the evening, as I was walking in my compound with my husband, like I do almost every evening, I saw two deep furrows of brilliant, golden light right above the location of Anna's house, deeply resembling large angel wings. They were clearly visible for around five minutes, before they disappeared. Skeptics will call it a play of the light of the setting sun, of clouds being positioned in a particular way against the light or something on those lines. I know what I saw. I had never seen it earlier and I have not seen it since...
 I knew I had to mark the date of her passing in some way every month. I thought if we could all send good thoughts and wishes and prayers on the 27th of each month to her parents and close family in the States, at least they would know people were thinking about them and their little girl. And so I began sharing a small rhyme each month in the ' Remembering Anna' group that her Aunt had created. I loved her middle name JEWELL so much that I tried to centre the rhymes around it. Both her grandmothers and a grand aunt, heart broken as they were, never failed to thank me for remembering and nor did her father, whenever we met in school. Her Mom gave us a beautiful 'Thank You' card when we had them over at our house, just before school closed for the academic year, last May. It was clear to see where Anna had got her thoughtfulness from and that the apple had not fallen far from the tree..


Twelve Little Rhymes For the Twelve Months Since She Has Been Gone.

It's been a month,
But even God can't keep chirpy little Anna down,
She's already the sparkliest JEWELL in His crown...

Months it's been merely two,
Anna, JEWELL of your parents' hearts,
Not a day goes by when we don't think of you...

Months it's been all of three,
My favourite is her Mom's profile picture,
Of her JEWELL shimmering halfway up a tree!

Be it years forty or, like today, months just four,
Anna, glowing JEWELL,
Will remain firmly embedded in her family's core.

Months it's been already five,
Even as to stem our tears we strive,
A JEWELL'S cupped in His palm,
Well and alive...

Call it half a year,
Or say months six,
Of JEWELL hued memories,tears, photos, videos,
It's been a heart wrenching mix.
Our broken hearts only He can fix.

It's her Mommy Martha's birthday next week,
If, into their home, you will peek,
You will see it's raining down love, hugs and sparkly kisses,
She knows, that's what the most, her Mom misses.
So A JEWELL's sending them to her straight from heaven,
Hard to believe that today it's been months seven...

It was her destiny and her fate,
It was written on His slate,
That months ago today, exactly eight,
He, Himself, opened for A JEWELL, heaven's pearly gate.
In His time, it's never too early or too late,
But our tearful acceptance still remains inchoate..

Two days, plus the number of months it takes for a baby to be born,
Is how long it's been since that last, happy, Christmas morn.
And today it's been months all of nine,
Since A JEWELL'S glowing colours suffused with the Divine...

It was months ago, today, a total of ten,
That we saw tears streaming from the eyes of even grown men.
God's hows and whys are completely beyond our ken,
To see her again the family has a yen.
The rich colours of A beJEWELLED sky give a glimpse, now and then.

Months it's been an excruciating eleven,
And the family's strength, for us, has been an inspiring leaven.
If only they could make a quick call to heaven.
And tell A JEWELL she's being missed twenty four by seven...

It's a time of good will and cheer,
Everyone's wishing folks far and near.
But our thoughts only in one direction veer,
And through our hearts pain does sear,
And our eyes have many an unshed tear.
Today it's been one whole year,
Since we said goodbye to A JEWELL
So precious and dear..

Elsa's Magnificient Meru, A Lithe Leopard In Samburu!

December is here already, my son's school closed yesterday and this is usually the time of the year when we plan a quick three day getaway in early January to coincide with my birthday, which conveniently coincides with the fractional fall in peak season, super high resort rates, as people start going back to work then... So before we go anywhere again this time, I need to inscribe the last trip taken, before fresh African images get super imposed over the previous ones already in my mind!
My parents had visited us at the end of 2012 and at that time we had covered most of the must see must do places of Kenya. So when my mother started planning her trip for 2016, I knew I had to look for fresher, greener pastures and as she is a huge George, Joy and Elsa Adamson fan, (of Born Free, Living Free, Forever Free fame), I hit upon the perfect vacation spot.
We planned to travel during the children's Spring Break (though it isn't spring in kenya then!), my husband took a couple of days off from work, my Skype students got a week's vacation and so we could visit both Meru and Samburu, of White Masai (both the book and the movie) fame. One thing I don't believe in doing in Kenya and avoided doing in Tanzania too, is flying across the country. I know chances are negligible that I will ever visit those areas again, since these are not my countries. That is why we always choose to travel by road, thereby fully savouring the beauty of the vast countryside, the ever varying landscape, and the versatile shades of green, brown and blue.
                                       Mount Kenya, tall and proud, chose to give us a view!

                                                 At the entrance of Meru National Park

Meru National Park : Rugged, unspoilt, untouched is how the Kenya Wildlife Service describes it. It is also the least visited National Park in Kenya and I hardly know anyone who has been there. Even our very experienced safari guide cum driver confessed to having been there just once, many years ago... On the map it is 350 kms from Nairobi. In reality it felt like 350 multiplied by ten! We set out very early on a sparkling March morning, for we had a long way to go, to another hemisphere actually, the Northern one! We crossed the Equator in good time and were even fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Mount Kenya since it was a clear day. We sped on ahead, so far so good as the roads were smooth and not too crowded either. But six hours into our drive and we seemed nowhere near our goal! And then the road changed to a bone jarring, jaw rattling, more pothole, less tar entity. I feel car sick at the best of times, unless I am driving myself, and this was just too much for me. I began wishing myself safely back in Nairobi and, as usual, began asking myself why I plan these practically off the map trips! I've done this in Tanzania and Russia too! Mercifully the National Park gate loomed up just as I was at the end of my tether. But my woes were not over yet.
We were booked into Elsa's Kopje, an award winning, eco friendly lodge, nestled amidst and blended into the 'Kopje' or rocky outcrop, which lies just above George Adamson's original research campsite. When the owner was scounting around for a place in Meru National Park to build the lodge, he began walking up this rocky hill. Barely halfway up, he was charged by a lioness. As he raced downhill, he knew he had found the perfect site for Elsa's Kopje. And so work began for an exclusive resort and famed paleoanthropologist Dr. Richard Leakey inaugurated it in 1999. At precisely that time, I was studying archaeologist Dr.Louis Leakey's work in the University, in my home town Pune, as part of my M.Phil degree. Did I even imagine I would one day stay in a resort his son had visited? Absolutely not! But such is life...
We began barelling down the rough interior roads of Meru. The lodge, if I recall correctly, is a good twenty kilometres away from the gate through which we had entered. But try twenty kilometres on rough, barely in existance roads. It was another hour before we spotted the rocky outcrop of Elsa's Kopje, after we had driven through a shallow but very fast flowing and broad stream of water, with steep banks. When we came back with a ranger for our evening safari and recrossed the stream, he helpfully told us that just a few months earlier, during the short rains, a vehicle had been overturned by the increased force of the water when a few tourists had been attempting to cross it, to get to the resort. Fortunately they had been rescued before they were attacked by lions or swept away by the water. Very reassuring!
Tall, cool, lemony lime drinks to chase away the dust (and in my case the car sickness related bile) clogging our throats, awaited us at the Kopje. A warm welcome by the staff  and by the numerous tree hyraxes snoozing around (little wonder they play a prominent role in Joy's books and paintings!) and we were then shown to our cottages. The entire resort has just twelve cottages and while my mother and the kids were put in a more centrally located one, the one my husband and I shared was really remote.The walls were half of stone and half of netting, affording us a panoramic view of Meru National Park. The hill fell steeply away from the edge of the cottage, which meant it was impossible for humans to loiter around outside the room but sure footed wild life was a different matter.

                                                                  Hello Hyrax!
A continental, vegetarian lunch later, (hardly any Indians or people of Indian origin make it to this park so there's no Indian food like you get just about everywhere else in Kenya), and we  were ready for our first safari. A ranger with a two way radio accompanied us because, unlike the Masai Mara, for example, there really are no tourists around every corner here, and if we were stranded anywhere, it would be hours before anyone would even realize that we were lost...There is barely any mobile phone range. The journey out was uneventful. We saw elephant herds in the distance, giraffes nibbling thorny acacias, different kinds of deer and a variety of birds but no lions. When we realized that we were now making a road with our vehicle tyres where none existed before, we told the driver to turn back. Halfway to Elsa's Kopje, we saw that the huge elephant herd, which we had earlier seen at a distance, was now blocking our path back. We stopped, literally, in our tracks. Suddenly that particular phrase seemed crystal clear! The elephants began moving towards us. Eleven years on the African continent and you can't not encounter an elephant in the wild, but these looked menacing, unlike the ones we had seen in numerous other parks earlier. They clearly were not used to people and cars invading their land. One began moving towards us, very determinedly. It ran a bit to pick up speed to charge then stopped. We began screaming. Now even our veteran driver panicked and was about to reverse the vehicle to flee. Then, the ranger quietly told him to switch off the vehicle, as elephants attack moving targets  and he warned us not to utter a sound, as elephants have extremely sharp ears and react to it, if perceived as threatening. Then there was pin drop silence in the vehicle. I could hear my heart thudding loudly, practically jumping out of my rib cage and the only other sound was that of blood rushing to my ears. We invoked just about every God we could to make the elephant go away because if it charged us, the safari van would be overturned in no time and since the whole herd was milling around the side of the road, we would be trampled without doubt. After an eternity, it was around ten minutes in reality, the elephant lost interest in us and began moving away followed by most of the herd. We shot out of there the minute the road was clear.

                                                  His road or ours? His, of course!

He eyes us from the corner of his eye as he crosses the road to join the herd on the other side. Then decides we are a threat so turns around to charge at us. Heart stopping moments....

Back in the lodge, after freshening up, we entered the common dining area where my Mom found a book she has been searching for for years, but which is sadly currently not available anywhere in India, not even on Amazon.in. Of course Joy Adamson's autobiography 'The Searching Spirit' would be there in Elsa's Kopje! Where else could it be! My mother asked for permission to carry the book to her room and as a consequence spent half the night reading, thereby missing the safari early next morning where my husband and daughter spotted lions and where wild buffaloes blocked their way! I prefered to catch up on my sleep!

                                                          A Blood Bond With Elsa?

                                                                    Buffalo Crossing!
Dinner was by the pool side, which is very unique because it has been carved out completely from the existing rock and is perched right at the edge of the rocky outcrop. There were only a handful of other guests so it was a very personal and quiet experience to dine under the same moon that shone on Elsa when she was released back into the wild by the Adamsons right there in Meru. The same moon under which she prematurely breathed her last, in Meru.

                     The location of George Adamson's original campsite as seen from the pool

Elsa's Kopje is not surrounded by an electric fence like all other African resorts located in the wild, barring Man Eaters in Tsavo. A leopard comes to drink from the swimming pool on most mornings. My daughter actually woke up at the crack of dawn to spot it but had no luck that particular morning. The guard who escorted us back to our far away cottage told us that a few weeks earlier a huge Tusker had been standing right outside that cottage when he reached it with some guests but mercifully did not charge at any of them. I gulped visibly...
Exhausted by our long and unusually scary day, I quickly fell into a deep sleep. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I heard the loud roar of lion, followed by a crashing sound through the undergrowth of some prey it was probably chasing. Somewhere a monkey gave a blood curdling screech. My eyes flew open as I heard the roar coming even closer now. There was no power as generators are turned off between midnight and six in the morning. The room was pitch dark and the only thought in my mind was that there was just a flimsy net between us and an angry, hungry lion as the stony rock would help, not hinder it to rush up... The rate at which the sounds were coming made it seem as if at any moment first the prey and then the lion in hot pursuit would crash into our room. And we had nowhere to hide, as in keeping with the ultimate privacy and luxury concept the lodge offers, the bathroom did not even have a door...There was nothing I could do except pray that the lion and prey turned away... which they did after many agonizing minutes.
The main attraction of Meru is that Elsa's grave lies here. After being hand reared as a cub by the Adamson's after her mother was shot and died, Elsa was released and had cubs too. But when she turned six, she tragically died of tick fever and she is buried here. The grave is deeper into the park and after our elephantine encouter the previous evening, neither our driver nor we were keen to venture further into Meru. So we paid respects mentally to the most famous lioness in the world and, accompanied by the head ranger who wanted a lift until the exit, bid good bye to Elsa's Kopje. A few minutes into our journey and we were waylaid by an elephant herd AGAIN with a repeat of the charging and retreating performance. By now we were trained enough not to move even a muscle, but never have I been as glad as I was to leave a National Park, as I was to depart from Meru. It is only for the really brave hearted. Little wonder then that my daughter has vowed to go back one day in the far future, with friends. They will have my best wishes!
Another long drive, another hot, dusty journey through brilliant African vistas, through Joy Adamson's town Isiolo where she stayed and completed a lot of her work and then we were in Samburu, the home of the famous Samburu tribe, cousins of the even more famous Masai. Immediately upon entering Buffaloe Springs Reserve which adjoins Samburu National Park, we felt as comfortable as we always do in all of Kenya's parks. Our driver was very familiar with this one as it is prominent on the local tourist route and so we were in a happy frame of mind, with the fear we had experienced in the last twenty four hours receding quickly. We spotted other safari vehicles and reached our resort, Ashnil Samburu, well in time for a lunch of chappatis and red beans and rice. This time our cottages were perched on the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro river and besides being within a stone's throw of each other, were also secured by electric fencing. A 'tame' wild elephant was on the other side of the fence, right beside the river, scrounging around for salt, which is probably a part of its daily lunch routine!

                                                              At a safe, electric fence distance!

My daughter was determined to see a leopard on this safari and what she wants she usually gets. So while my son chose a nature walk and lesson on the resort grounds and I chose to sleep, she, my mother and my husband set off very early the next morning for a safari and the driver drove them towards an area more than forty kilometeres away, where leopards are usually spotted in Samburu. And they spied a magnificent one whose pictures speak volumes about its non chalant attitude! It seems to have adopted Tennyson's words and is disdainfully saying 'For (Wo)Men may come and (Wo)Men may go, but the lithe leopards of Samburu go on forever...

This was, by far, our most adventurous safari yet, because we truly ventured off the cliched, beaten track. If you want a truly adrenaline pumping, pulse boosting Kenyan Safari, be sure to visit Elsa's Meru. Don't worry, she will watch over you....After all, the Lion, not the elephant, is the King of the jungle!

Stranger In MY City

Eighteen days ago, the one thousand rupee and the five hundred rupee notes were declared invalid in India, by our honourable Prime Minister, from the stroke of midnight, on that day itself. While the world woke to a mundane Wednesday morning, we woke up to worthless pieces of paper in our pockets and purses. In order to flush out Black Money from the bank lockers, bedrooms and boudoirs of unscrupulous businessmen and women, these two denominations of notes had been demonetized, that is, they were no longer legal tender. This meant that all those fake notes floating around, (it is said our various neighbours print more of our currency than we do), were suddenly worthless too. So it was the proverbial killing of two birds with one stone, a master stroke indeed.
Anyone who has bought or sold property in India knows that we have two components while paying for property, the Black and the White. A lower value is shown on documents and the difference between the actual higher value and the on paper value changes hands in cold, hard, cash. Or, if you are a Non Resident Indian and do not have Black cash lying around, the builder asks you to issue a 'Self' cheque, so his henchman can go and withdraw the money from your perfectly legal Non Resident Account and pocket it, without paying a paisa in tax. Now, of course, all such unscrupulously earned money isn't worth the paper it is printed on. The government and the banks are asking some hard questions to those depositing unaccounted for, high amounts, overnight in their accounts.
A predictable fallout of all this is that real estate prices are set to come down in most major cities of India, as builders can no longer bank on Black cash coming in. This, in turn, means that there is a barrage of mails in my mail box from builders I have contacted in the past, while scouting around for property. And my city, Pune, is being touted as one of the destinations to invest in, as it is already on the government's list of 'Smart City' development plan.
From being a cliched pensioner's paradise just a couple of decades ago to a software hub, my city has come a long way. Real estate prices have already hit the very costly roof and there seems to be no limit to development, which is a euphemism for construction and more construction. I go home once a year, after nine months, and so I am always particularly struck by the ever changing landscape of the city, more so than my parents, for example, who live there all year round.
Even my own micro environment in Pune is changing. Our bungalow society is now around fifty years old and every time I go back, I am informed of yet another bungalow being purchased by a super rich entity, (I'm even told about the black and white components!), then demolished and an ostentatious monstrosity being constructed, where once a simple, middle class bungalow stood. These were houses where we spent large parts of our childhood. Summer days were spent playing cards on the carpet of a no longer in existence living room, those were the kitchens we raided for chilly powder to go with the staple summer snack of raw mango, those bookshelves that were pulled down were the ones we ransacked in our search for that one unread book, after our grandmothers and mothers had chased us away to borrow books, because we had finished reading everything we had!
We no longer even know the names of the new inhabitants. This point was driven home to me last June, when the business manager of the folks we rented out my husband's office space to, on seeing our residential address, asked if we knew Mr.X, who was his friend and lived in our society. I was forced to say no as I  really had no clue about this family... Time was when I could recite every inhabitant's name, from the ancient great grand father to the new born babe, birth dates included!
The mails from builders are now pushing what were once far flung areas of my city as well connected, centralized locations! It actually makes me laugh. Those narrow highways, which are now being miraculously transformed into multi lane ring roads, are the ones where my driving instructor took me to practice highway driving, when I learned to drive nearly seventeen years ago. We would be surrounded by rolling green fields and ancient trees, by deep, stone ringed wells, with the labourers, farmers and their wives actually stopping work, to stare askance, at what was then a novelty for them, a car and a girl behind the wheel. Today, less than twenty years later, those same farmers have sold all those fields to builders and yes, cash, both black and white, has changed hands, and they now own cars flashier and much more expensive than my own Mercedes. And as far as the eye can see, there are buildings and more buildings, with scarcely an ancient tree in sight. One might see some saplings planted as mere tokenism...
I belong to a Pune Moms FaceBook group. It amuses me to read about Mothers who have just moved to Pune and who ask each other about the best creche or the best pre school in that particular area and then they share the name of their area. I feel like telling them, "I knew your area when it was scrub land!" Or, I feel like saying, "We used to picnic every weekend where your flashy river side residence now stands..." Time was when there were only a handful of reputed preschools in Pune and another handful of regular schools, which we would even consider getting our children admitted to. Today, a pre school mushrooms in every lane and by lane of the city and beyond and international schools sell themselves through their websites, to folks the world over who might be considering making Pune their home. For, where builders build, schools follow.
At times, I feel slightly resentful of these strangers invading my city and changing its horizons beyond belief. Where once water pumped by the Municipal Corporation gushed right up to our third floor water tank, today it cannot reach our first floor bathroom, without the aid of a pump. Where once a visit to Main Street in Cantonment Area or a food halt at Vaishali on Ferguson College road, meant bumping into at least a dozen people you knew, today unknown people brush past you or unknown faces stare at you, as you wait impatiently for a free table...
What ARE all these strangers doing in my city?...Or wait a minute. Is it that now I am a Stranger in MY city?

                             May be we don't want a smart city? Maybe we were happy with what we had? But who's asking us? Progress, relentlessly marches on...aided by money, both black and white. 

Ae Deal Hai Mushkil (This is a difficult deal!)

A few days ago, I made the mistake of going for a movie that had been released the preceding Friday. My daughter had been waiting to watch it for many months, as she is a huge fan of the director and he has just one release every four or five years! As per the original plan, she was supposed to watch it in India with her brand new college friends but as luck and the Supreme Court Of India (one judge in particular) would have it, medical admissions of international students were arbitrarily cancelled, citing a lack of an exam they were not supposed to give in the first place and so she had to come back to Nairobi, just like a hundred plus medical college students had to go back to their countries of residence. Which meant that I had to go with her for the movie.
Ten minutes into the movie and I knew I had made a gross error. This particular movie had been in the news for the past few weeks because one of the actors was from our neighbouring country. Relations between our neighbour and India recently took a turn for the worse and so a particular political outfit had threatened to disallow the screening of the movie. The matter was resolved with the powers that be meeting with the directors and producers who apologized and promised to check passports before casting actors in future and the movie was released on time.Well I just wish they had succeeded in blocking the release...
If I wanted to watch scenes from blockbuster movies of yesteryears, I would simply watch them online or I would wait for the movies to be screened on television, which they are, with unfailing regularity. Why would I pay good money to watch two silly people with too much money and too much time on their hands trying to recreate those scenes? And not that the scenes are much to speak of in the first place, as they mostly involve women in chiffon sarees prancing around trees in Europe and looking ridiculous. People in Bollywood seem to have over flowing bank accounts but have a complete paucity of ideas at times...
Twenty five years ago when I was a teenager and in high school, the concepts of living in, multiple relationships, same sex relationships, divorce et al, even malls of the Sweet Valley High series, were all completely alien to us. We were very clear back then that such issues were 'American' in nature (with sincere apologies to my American friends here, all of whom have rock solid values) and we had nothing to do with it. Well, well, the shoe is on the other foot now. A post liberalization India is grappling with all this and more today, leading to an irrevocable break in what old fashioned people like me call basic decency, core values and some semblance of culture.
Even then we, as upper middle class, middle class (and below) parents do try our best to inculcate basic moral dos and don'ts in our children and we still hope that once they are financially independent and no longer answerable to us, they will lead reasonably decent and upright lives and not turn into home wreckers and adulterers. And then this kind of a movie comes along which is so completely divorced from the reality in India. We have only a hand full of Metros and maybe another fistful of large cities. The rest of India is a combination of small town and rural life. Open any newspaper and you will read about many of the social and ethical issues that are raising their heads there, leading to Panchayats and parents often taking the law in their own hands, generally with tragic results. And very often, these new age couples are inspired by Bollywood, which they think is the new reality. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
When this kind of a movie comes along, teenagers and young adults think if the lead actors and actresses can hop from one bed to another, from one relationship to another, get into a physical relationship with a person he or she  met TWO hours ago, then why can't they do the same? If the reel life heroes and heroines can puff cigarette after cigarette, down vodka shot after shot in a bar (this seems to be a favourite scene in EVERY movie these days) then surely it's the right thing to do? Instead of emulating people who have made something more of their lives than simply increasing alcohol and contraceptive bills, our youngsters seem to be getting caught in this vicious cycle of a lifestyle that doesn't seem to serve any higher purpose or calling.
Such movies, if at all there is a need to make them, surely need to come with an A for Adult tag. Then at least, younger, tender, minds will not be exposed to what can be termed as a complete breakdown of our traditional Indian society on the screen and a complete aberration of the way most of us choose to lead our lives. Life, even on the straight and narrow path, is not easy and if complicated by jumbled up ideas and no clear delineation between right and wrong, is only going to become more tumultuous.
Another completely irritating feature of the movie was the way the hero came across as a clingy, needy, guy ready to burst into tears at the smallest possible provocation. While I am ready to break most gender stereo types ( and have broken quite a few of them) and have NEVER said to my son 'Don't cry like a girl' (and will never say it either), how many of us want husbands/ boy friends who spout tears like a leaky faucet every few minutes? No, honestly, think about it. Tears are genetically a woman's prerogative and let's keep it so or else, as a compromise, let neither sex cry on screen!
The hero discloses that his mother abandoned the house and him along with it, when he was a two year old toddler, leaving him to the mercy of his billionaire father. Even that is insensitively treated as a joke by the leading lady. Well, it certainly explains a lot about his behaviour...
That's about the only lesson you can learn from this skewed movie. Leave your marital home if, compelled by circumstances, you have to, but NOT without your kids. Else one day a girl is going to have a soggy, weepy guy on her hands, craving the attention and affection denied to him by his mother, and she will drop him like a hot, sorry, soaked in salty tears potato...
P.S : My daughter remains loyal to the aforementioned director and found nothing much wrong with movie, save the twist at the end. But then, her ideas of busting gender stereotypes involve letting grown up guys wear pink dresses if they want to! The less said about this, the better. And yes, she's refused to go and watch a movie with me ever again, after I tore this one to shreds! See what I mean about Bollywood destroying family traditions?!! I've been taking her for an occasional movie since before she was born...