Some songs don’t entertain—they warn.
One such musician was Mûkaramani. Originally from a nearby village of Gíthiga, Mukaramani had left for Nairobi in search of a better life. His songs often reflected the vibrancy and challenges of city life, and through them, the villagers knew his story. Life in the city had not treated him kindly. The bright lights and allure of Nairobi had deceived him, and after years of toil, he found himself with nothing to show. The city girls he once dazzled with his earnings were long gone, and the beer that had flowed so freely now left only the bitter taste of regret.
In one of his last songs, Mukaramani poured out his sorrow. He called upon his people back in Githiga to go for him, to rescue him from the depths of despair. He sang of the lost years, the wasted opportunities, and the bitter truth that time had passed him by. He had no wife, no children, and no home to call his own. His earnings had vanished into the sparkling nightlife of Nairobi, and now, in his old age, he realized that life in the village had moved on without him.
The village he had once known had changed. Roads were better, houses bigger, and the young girls he might have married were now wives and mothers, and perhaps grandmothers. The village, Mukaramani knew, would no longer look up to him as they once might have. Instead, he would be a cautionary tale, a man who had left young, with great promise but returned empty-handed, too late to start anew. In fact, the villagers might be the ones to look for him 'gicokio' as they pitied the old man he had become.
Mukaramani was not alone in this fate. In Gitithia village, there were many like him—men who had left in their youth, full of energy and ambition, to seek fortune in distant places. Among them was Mbugua. In his early twenties, Mbugua had left Gitithia and roamed far and wide. His work had taken him to bustling towns like Eldoret, Nakuru, Nairobi and even Mombasa. For a time, the world was his playground, and he indulged in the pleasures that came his way. Beer flowed like water, and the laughter of city girls filled his nights. The thought of home was far from his mind as he enjoyed the soft life that the towns offered.
But like Mukaramani, Mbugua was not spared by the harsh realities of city life. Time slipped through his fingers, and before he knew it, the years had passed. He returned to Gitithia weary and worn, his youthful vigor replaced by the aches and pains of age. Now in his late fifties like Mukaramani, he returned in the village not as the successful man he had envisioned, but as a retiree with no savings, no wife, and no children. The only thing waiting for him was his old thingira, a small mud house that his old father had built for him.
As Mbugua walked the familiar paths of Gitithia, he realized just how much had changed. The children playing by the roadside did not recognize him, and even the elders who had once known him shook their heads in sorrow. He was a stranger in his own village, a relic of a time long past. The young men who had once admired him had grown into fathers and grandfathers themselves, building homes and families while Mbugua had been lost in the fleeting pleasures of town life.
Mbugua became the Mukaramani song that the village would sing and tell, warning the next generation. He was a man who had left full of dreams, only to return with empty hands, his youth spent on the glittering distractions of the city. The village, however, had moved on, and there was little room for men like him who had forgotten their roots.
