The king is dead, long live the king!!

I’m still trying to come to terms with Michael’s sudden demise. I’ve been reading all the obituaries and tributes published in his memory; but I’m not able to digest the fact that he is gone.

Thriller was the first English album I ever heard. When I was growing up he was the best dancer showman ever. I remember I once bought a pair of North Star shoes because it made my moonwalk look better (didn’t help much though :)). All of us wanted his shiny jackets, ankle length shoes and tried standing on our toes, knees bent clutching our imaginary hats. None of us could, at least not with His grace and panache. Even mum loved “Beat it” on that album; and that was big considering mum never really liked English stuff. It would play incessantly in our run down car stereo.

We would rent the Thriller videotape and watch his videos over and over again. His Smooth Criminal is my all time favourite. Then followed all his concert videos we could lay our hands on. How many afternoons were spent watching these!!

Then, came Dangerous. I remember a bunch of us kids sitting in our retired landlord’s house waiting for the premiere for His “Remember the time” (the poor old grandpa was forced to watch an hour of MTV because he was the only one with cable at that time). It was the first video that absolutely blew my mind away. The grandeur and the effects! I remember all of us watched with our mouths open and left the landlord’s house quietly once the video was done.

I remember when he came to Mumbai, we obviously couldn’t go for it (we were kids in Bangalore). But we would tune in to the news just to catch those 15 seconds of his moonwalk.

MJ then just faded away from my music collection, only for occasional revisits to a few of his songs (Beat it, smooth criminal, who is it, jam, bad, in the closet, dirty Diana to name a few). With all the scandals that surrounded him, he became the stand-up comics favourite and eventually MJ became a cuss word. But I still secretly loved him, his music, presence, his aura were such a huge influence on me, and was impossible not to.

For me, there will no bigger performer that MJ. In my book, he is untouchable.

I hope he rests in peace; he couldn’t when he was alive!