Monday 21 July 2014

NOTCH, THE ONLY OFFICIAL KING IN KENYA MASAI MARA


All the great features of the Mara are special in their own way. They are natural and unmovable. They are ever present, ever striking and forever talked about and cherished by generations, ancient, recent and present. The plains, the elevated grounds, the rivers and the annual longest distance and most massive marathon on earth; the wildebeest migration are the phenomena upon which spectacular images have been shot and jaw-dropping stories put down.
This is just the little we know for the little time we roam the vastness of the world's most talked about land. But perhaps Notch, the King of Mara knows, beyond what we see about the drama that unfolds on the ground all night and all day. This King owns the Mara, it breeds into it and puts life to where it has been taken away or where it has never been.
Being the most prominent cat of Kenya's Masai Mara, and the most popular lion in the region, he is an official public figure.
And Notch's Legacy Roars on.
He is influential, resistant, tough, energetic, protective and a mascot of pride and territorial control. You would forgive him for his ruthlessness to the enemy when you meet him and see his macho figure, the handsomeness in his eyes, his undiluted mane, and so greatly his brood of boys that he is endowing Mara to so that they may by his orders protect and breed into it like he solemnly did in the light and in the dark of his heyday, so that when he is no more the brilliance of his lamp lives on.
He protects his sons and they protect him. His polygamous lifestyle takes him to every inch of the reserve, to inspect his territory, to reassure his big girls and to cuddle his adorable brood. To the lions of Masai Mara waiting on the queue, Notch has lived a long life. But to the tour guides, game rangers and tourists who called him by name, the big cat film makers and to the authors, Notch has lived a short life full of bliss, pride, dominance and a self acquired legacy.
This uncommon public figure, has roared his way into the big channels of the globe, bitten his path to the awesome records in the diaries of the Big Cats and leaped his road ahead of many other lions and brought to himself an empire. He has made friends in Africa his home place, Asia where he is fondly remembered, Australia where his images lie, South America where his stories are told this minute, North America where a film of him is on, Europe where he is widely saluted and probably in heaven where he was sent from.
When he is gone, if he is gone, if he ever goes, his force in the shadows and dreams of those who watched him in documentaries, read of him in books or heard of him in verbal tales shall be represented by the multitude of his living effects today. The consequences of his existence when he goes to rest shall be seen on his tracks and the strong scent of the thick skin of the life he excellently lived. When the living lions imagine, dream or remember the vibration his roar caused across the Mara, they will tremble with the nostalgia of his majestic legacy.
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