Filming in Masai Mara: Crocs, Spotting Big Cats, and the Maasai

A film crew shoots in the majestic lands of the Maasai Mara in Kenya capturing glimpses of wild and tribal life.

An elusive and magnificent big cat – the leopard. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

The crocodiles sunbathe on the beach of the Talek, while we laze on the deck of our tent on the opposite bank. A spray of water interrupts our view. Oh, it is a hippopotamus. Dark grey and pink, only its eyes and snout visible above the water.

A sunbathing crocodile. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

The word tent used to conjure a vision of an awning stretched over a tiny frame under which one had to crawl. No more. Our canvas tents on the banks of the River Talek are expansive, with wooden floor boards and four poster beds. We utilise every inch to create different indoor backdrops for Murals. For a romantic scene, we shoot through the folds of the mosquito net. The result is poetic.

Spiders and a Game of Football

Maasai children. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

A Spider sewed at Night

Without a Light

Upon an Arc of White

It tickles when it brushes your skin, but it is invisible. Until, suddenly, a shaft of green-filtered sunlight reveals it: a perfectly woven spider’s web. Near the tent, suspended between branches. Ashish places his camera behind it, films Shoma and me, smoking slim cigars, having a scripted conversation. Are not our real life ones often scripted as well? Catechisms designed to keep our mind away from the pointlessness of daily life?

But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror’s magic sights…

Sunrise at Maasai mara. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

A few days ago, an old man had played the oud for us in Addis Ababa, where we had changed planes. Ashish had captured him. He had captured a beautiful Ethiopian girl too. He later captured Shoma and me in the Cessna that flew us from Nairobi to the Mara. This tiny plane gives you a flavour of what the early days of aviation might have been like.

One day, Ashish joins a group of youngsters who are kicking a ball around. They end up playing a football match outside the electric fence of the campsite. While they have a rollicking time, I cannot help but wonder how the game would have gone if some ferocious four-footed players had decided to join in.

Spotting Big Cats

A leopard lurking, camouflaged in the grass. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

Unlike sanctuaries in India, where one has to be lucky to spot wildlife, especially big cats, in Kenya it is the reverse – you have to be exceptionally unlucky to miss them. Not only that, you see the animals in numbers: Lions, cheetahs, hyenas, elephants, hippos, crocodiles, wildebeests, zebras, deer, ostriches, leopards…

A lioness and her cub. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

Two leopards hunt in tandem. They are brothers. They are still young. They slowly move through the tall grass. Unseen. Unheard. At one point, they part company, move in opposite directions, tracing out the circumference of a circle. The prey lies within it. One brother moves in a leftward arc, reaching a position upwind of them. The other one moves rightward, downwind of them. You see the animals suddenly on alert, as if an electric current has run through them. The idea is for the predator they have smelled to drive them towards the one they have not. But, the concealed predator makes the dash towards the prey too soon. And they bound off in a third direction. As fast as the spotted one is, it fails in its hunt. The strategy is right, but, not being fully mature yet, it lacks the patience to see it through.

Two cheetahs at Maasai Mara. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

Notes From Maasai Land

Maasai women. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

One morning we go to a village, one of the many in the Mara. We are welcomed with song and dance:

Mother Kilelu, do not come leisurely

Shut the gateway but leave a little opening

The Maasai live in a kraal, a cluster of houses. The women build these homes, inkajijiks, with the urine and dung of cows. The men surround the inkajijiks with a fence of acacia thorns, to protect their families and livestock from lions.

I plaster the wall as well as the outside attic

So that our shapely bow could be hung

The one on which we depend!

Once upon a time, a coming-of-age ritual for young Maasai men was to kill a lion. But times have changed and today many of them are engaged in the conservation of wildlife.

The donkey brays, so does the stripe-bottomed one!

Tall is the ox, it touches the sky, giraffe!

Ashish and I participate in a ritual where men try to jump up as high as possible. It appears to be a sort of competitive sport as well. Though I manage to jump quite high, my form is apparently off. You are supposed to jump with your arms perfectly straight by your side and your legs straight too. I instinctively bend and move my arms and legs to help me get more purchase. I notice the young Maasai men laughing at me.

The Maasai jumping ritual. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

He that detests my loving the warriors

Find one tough thing to do

Scrape the road with your buttocks

Until you have reached Nairobi

While Ashish and I do the high-jump, the women pull Shoma into their dance.

I dare not store this precious love of my love

At the head, for the mind abounds with changes

A man shows us how the Maasai traditionally make fire. He rolls a stick between his hands, one end rubbing a small heap of kindling on the ground. Soon we see a wisp of smoke. He then takes us inside his hut. The ceiling is low. The Maasai are tall.

A Maasai man lights a fire. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

I have stored the love of my love

Since I was just a little girl

The men and women are decked in red or reddish fabrics and many-splendoured beads. They have similar jewellery available for sale, along with leather shields, wooden masks and other handicrafts. The women who have made these items stand around. When you enquire about the price of a particular item, its maker comes forward to bargain – smiling, revealing two missing lower front teeth, removed as per Maasai tradition.

Maasai men from the village. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

The love of my love has gone down

To where the infants lie

I store it where the infants are carried

To keep it growing day by day

The old village chief speaks to us through an interpreter. He says that while Western-style education has brought benefits, it is also causing the erosion of Maasai tribal culture.

Put a hyena at the sheep pen

As well as the cheetah

Shoma buys a wooden knobkerrie, decorated with paint and beads. Seeing her playfully hit me with it, the village chief says gravely that it is the staff of justice and should only be used by a woman to strike her husband if the need arises. She also buys an exquisite band of beads that, he says, should be worn by the woman during her wedding.

Beads and other adornments made by the Maasai. (Photo Courtesy: Sumanto Chattopadhyay)

If by the morning the sheep are safe

I will give up the brother of Talash

Then you can bleed the white-nosed one

To purge me from the long-haired one

Note: The verses quoted are from Emily Dickinson’s A Spider Sewed at Night, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott, Pablo Neruda’s Canto General and traditional Maasai songs.

(This is part two of a series on shooting a movie in the Maasai Mara. You can read part one here.)

(Sumanto Chattopadhyay’s day job is that of a creative director with Ogilvy, South Asia, where he’s won many international awards for creativity. Sumanto is also an actor. He has worked with celebrated directors like Gurinder Chadha, Kumar Shahani and Buddhadeb Dasgupta. His other passions include photography and writing – short stories, poetry, articles on advertising, culture, language and travel.)