Free Spirit stands for other Other Free Spirits

Tillikum the 22 feet/12,000 lb killer whale killed his trainer at a Sea World show in Orlando. It was the breaking news all day yesterday. People expressed shock and surprise, sadness and anger with as much drama as any average American produces when placed in front of a camera. (Yaaa and we are the emotional ones). News reporters uncovered the "checkered" past of the male Orca which has sired 17 calves over his long career with the Sea world, while the camera showed the clips of the 'beast' in an isolated tank as if he is some criminal awaiting his sentencing.

Now of course it is sad that the trainer lost her life and it is awful that so many people actually witnessed the horrible incident, but I don't understand why the poor Whale is being labeled as some crazy, murderous monster. And I also don't understand the shock that something like this has happened. He is a FISH and that too a Killer whale, a magnificent mammal who has lived most of his life in captivity. He was born in the wild and I bet it is quite an adjustment from swimming in the Icelandic Atlantic Coast to being held in a tank which is probably the size of a bath tub for him. These animals are smart and wonderful creatures and don't get me wrong when I saw them at Sea World it was so amazing but, why are they paying such a high price to provide entertainment for us crazy, self indulgent human beings? And then when they lash out or react, we are shocked and surprised? Perhaps Tilli was just playing and didn't realise how fragile humans are since none of the trainers ever got in the tank with him. Apparently his violent history has caused the authorities to put a special set of procedures for his training. He is not used in waterworks and trainers believe he doesnt know his own strength I'm pretty sure he was not hungry, since the tiny woman was nothing but a lamb chop for Tilli.

I was reading about the incident and read the statement of the Seaworld spokesperson and according to him Tilli was having a great time and he is a great animal and that even though they are not sure how they will proceed with the animal after this incident, they are not going to "put him down". What??? Why would he be put down any way. You drag the poor animal out of the wild, make him do silly tricks every day for the next 20 odd years of his life, keep him in captivity, using him as a mating device (I'm not sure if he disliked that), keeping him isolated from the rest of the whales because of his size and then when he reacts based on whatever natural instinct that he acting on, you put him down? You bet your ass he wont be put down.

According to a marine biologist killer whales in the wild live in family groups, and males stay with their mothers their entire lives. Family members rely on each other for social structure and play, and they cover hundreds of miles of ocean, She also said they do need more space, and situations like that do cause a lot of stress for them, most likely.She said Tillikum had a "flopped fin, something seen in captivity but not much in the wild. How sad is that.

Interestingly, Tillkum is close to one other Whale Taima, who is kind of an outcast herself, having attacked two of her own calves she was put on birth control and separated from other animals except Tillkum. Their child Sumer is the star of the Shamu show in San diego. Wow sounds like a movie, outcast mom and dad and child abused but goes on to become a superstar LOL

Anyway Sea world contends that the animals are useful for research and perhaps for us to get a chance to observe them and what not, but based on what I have read, whales in captivity are not as good of subjects as the ones in the wild. Neither are any of the other animals. But it sure is hell of a way to make billions of dollars.

I think Tillikum should be set free. He is obviously wanting out. God he just reminds me of finding Nemo, only a less PG 13 version of it of course. How awful? He is old enough to retire anyway. They should retire all whales over the age of 15 and release them into the wild just like Keiko - the free willy whale.

I have a free spirit, I love to be outside and have no holds on me. I feel alive. I hate sitting in my office everyday, doing 'work' that does not excite me and frustrates me, but I have to otherwise I will be 'put down'. Given an opportunity I will also grab some of my coworkers from the pony tail and thrash them around a bit. And if it proves fatal, well can you blame me for it :)

FREE TILLIKUM

I believe I can fly

Lately I have been thinking about this whole ABCD thing. No I have not developed a problem with the English Language alphabets, I am talking about the term ABCD. To those who don't know and who are coincidentally the people living under a rock, ABCD stands for American Born Confused Desis. To those who don't know and who are coincidentally the people living under a rock, people from the Indo-Pak Sub-continent refer to themselves as Desis meaning a person from their country as opposed to a Pardesi which means a foreigner. Now the ABCDs are the second or third or even fourth generation Desis born to American immigrants of Indian or Pakistani descent. The name, undoubtedly given to them by a Non-Resident Desi, is in no way meant to be derogatory term, contrary to what many ABCD may have you believing. They are called that because many believe them to be lost and confused about their true identity, culture and heritage. They are caught in the middle of two contradictory ways of life and sets of morals and values, one being that of their own country, followed by their American friends and the other forced on them by their parents and family, which results in utter confusion, usually further heightened by frequent trips to their ancestral homeland.
In retaliation the ABCDs call us lowly international students and newly migrated members of the American work force as 'FOBs' which of course is not a new term and has always been used to describe the new immigrants as "Fresh off the Boat". Derogatory? Maybe, but that is not the focus of my recent musings.
Is the term ABCD still relevant? Can the naturalized Asian Indian/Indian American/East Indian American citizens still be considered confused? After being a part of this society for almost a century are they still looking for a sense of belonging? Are they still suffering from an identity crisis? Slowly and steadily they have become fully integrated and incorporated into the various sectors of this society. They are the IT gurus, successful CEOs, politicians, presidential advisers, Scientific geniuses and entertainers. And since the stereotype of a Desi has changed from a Motel/gas station/liquor store owner to that of an Engineering/mathematical/software genius, the ethnic group has risen in stature, its culture being hailed and accepted, and it is getting incorporated into the various aspects of the society. With this change, I believe, the ABCDs are becoming less insecure and developing a more confident sense of belonging and an association with this country. So I guess they are not as much of ABCDs as they once used to be.
But whenever I look at people around me, people I know, co-workers, friends, friends of friends, people from my generation and the generation after, I realise that in actuality it is we who are really confused. Who are we? We are the post-Internet globalized 21st century Desis, who are still desi enough to consider arranged marriages, but are Americanized enough to have the sense of space and personal freedom and satisfaction. We have all fallen victims to our parents' guilt trips and harsh parenting skills, which ensured that we remain under-confident, lacking of a strong sense of self-worth and self-esteem and feeling that if we ever think of ourselves we are extremely selfish and there is no one worse than us. We still live under a gigantic cloud of parental, societal, religious and personal expectations, mostly unrealistic. We mostly find ourselves in the fields of engineering, medicine and IT and we also mostly find ourselves hating it and being miserable. What made it worse is that we got exposed to the other side of the world, to the things that could have been and can be, things that should have been and should be. We are not necessarily rebellious, but we are dying with the contradictions swimming around in our heads, contradictions between what we want to do and what we have to and should do, between what we have been told is right and what we KNOW is right. We have come to realise the societal and religious hypocrisies that is a part and parcel of the two Desi societies and we hate that we have to participate in these ideas and worse that we have to make them our own. And no matter how old we get or how self-aware we become , or how independent we may be, we are still rooted in the cultural and moral values and societal and parental expectations, even though we don't believe in many of them.
I (and I know for a fact that I am not alone), found myself to be misfit from the day I was born. I never felt like I belonged, anywhere. I didn't agree with many things around me. I did believe in the values that were given to me, but I didn't understand why people lived their lives in complete contrast to those values. I didn't agree with being like everyone else, behaving like everyone else. I didn't want to study what everyone expected me to study, I didn't agree with how people treated other people. I hated the class difference, the double standards, the way people treated and considered love. I thought I was a freak, a view shared by many, many and I may add another many, people. I tried so hard to fit in, didn't work. I tried so hard not to fit in, well that of course didn't work. Anyway life happened, years passed and I landed in the US of A. I thought I was free. I could finally learn who I was, be who I am and discover what I wanted in life, you know all that Oprahish stuff.
But guess what? When I came here, I brought an excess baggage that I had no idea about but have to pay a very high price for. The Gigantic cloud of expectations, the societal prejudices and the last but not the least guilt! Sounds familiar?
I and other Desis like me are living with this baggage. Day in and day out, we struggle to break free of it and finally be who we want to be and do what we want to do, but the guilt holds us back, we have become our own society, our own parents our own annoying bu'aas and Phoopos with their judgmental and disapproving looks and irritating Haa haeyyys. Contradiction. Our lives turned around, we are still confused and still struggling. And hence the new term ACDs - Americanised confused desis :)
To the people who read this, who I know are just as ACD as I am, and to myself I say...let go. Let go of who you think your parents want you to be, let go of who the society expects you to be with, let go of what you have been told marriage should be like, let go of the societal criteria of success, of a good spouse, a good man, a good woman, a good child and a good life. Let go, be free, live and let live, and be true to who you are. Distinguish between what about our values and culture is good and fair and what is a truck full load of crap. Our culture gives us more good than bad, we just have to dig deeper.