Masai Warriors, On Duty at Pune - a Satire

Masai is a tribe of Kenya and some parts of Tanzania. Both Masai men and women are tall, strong and lanky. They live in their tribal ways and follow the tribal rules and laws. Masais are very strong and fearless warriors. An able-bodied Masai boy becomes a warrior (or may be used to become) only after killing a lion alone with just a spear.

Masai Warriors

Masai warriors are required to defend their clan from enemies and their livestock from predators like lions of savannah grassland. Readers must be thinking, what does Masais of Kenya doing in Pune and that too on duty.

Two Masais, a male and a female, tall well built and fit, in form of two wooden statues came with me from Mombasa (when my ship INS Delhi visited Mombasa somewhere in 2004) obviously without any passport and visa. They were picked up last minute from the handicraft sellers in Mombasa Port on the insistence of my friends to pick up some souvenirs as till then I did not pick up anything.

Mr Masai From Mombasa, Lost his Spear and Shield in last 13 years

Mrs Masai from Mombasa. She has managed to retain her Cooking tool for all these years

Upon their arrival at Mumbai, into our Fauji household, they were welcomed and appreciated. Prominent space was created in our drawing room (Fauji houses anyway look like a museum with showpieces picked up from far and wide, hence space creation was required) and Masais were asked to set up their own place there. Thankfully they enjoyed living outdoors and did not build a Masai Hut in our drawing room.

The Masais generally guarded one of the corners of our house passively

As our companions, they moved houses with us from time to time during our transfers and finally came with us to our Permanent abode at Pune. All along, they had no other task to perform but to merely stand in our drawing room and observe the happenings there. They were witness to My daughter becoming a CA, Son becoming an Architect and I became a Captain and then Commodore. They also witnessed my wife's best days as a teacher loved by children. They, however, were uninvolved and unmoved like a stoic Masai.

Somewhere during 2016, we picked up a dog. A cross of Doberman and Indian Dog. We love our pet Cookie (a boy named Cookie by Johari family who rescued him originally). With this kind of name everyone mistook him to be a girl and then we coined a new name for him and told everyone he is Cookie Singh to denote his gender.

 As a Pup, he did not have a reach to climb sofas. When we reached Pune, after a few months he was big enough to climb up on sofas. While we love him, asking a guest to be comfortable on a sofa which has hair on it (dog hair are all over if any dog keeps climbing and sitting on a sofa), was becoming embarrassing. We tried to put back-cushions on the seat but he would pull them down and climb on the sofa. We tried many such methods to dissuade him from doing so and failed. We were at our wit's end and did not know what to do and then we remembered the Masais, Mr and Mrs by a sheer act of God.

It so happened that while playing with him one day we noticed that when his ball reached the Massais and hit them, they moved and shook and that put a scare of mighty Masais in his mind.  Then on, when his ball or toy reached anywhere closure to these Masais standing in a prominent corner of our hall, he begged us to remove the toy or ball from their vicinity and give back to him.

That was our Eureka moment. That was also the moment when our Masais finished their peaceful time and started getting their duties off and on. Following the law of gender equality (and also because we had two sofas), both the Male Masai and his wife were placed on duty. The saving grace was, they are placed on duty only when we go out during the day but their night duty is always there as this boy has a habit of getting up in the middle of the night and go and plonk on one of the sofas.

See for yourself how they hold the fort for us and prevent  Cookie the Great from ravaging our beautiful sofas.

Mr Masai Guarding one Sofa

Mr Masai Guarding one Sofa - Second Post

Mrs Masai Guarding the  other sofa

Mrs Masai Guarding the  other sofa - Sleeping but doing the duty

We are happy that Masais have found a new role, Masais are happy that their boredom has ended and they have an active role now and the guests are happy that despite the household having a dog the sofas are clean. Only person who is unhappy is our Cookie the Great since he is scared of Masais and has realised that even when he barks at them, they are unmoved.

The victim of Masai Atrocities (LoL) - Cookie

Long live antics of Cookie and the sense of duty of Masais from Mombasa, happily performing their duty at Pune.