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| The king will live on... |
| Neha Bhatt / New Delhi Jun 28, 2009, 00:16 IST |
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Indian fans throng the Internet to mourn Michael Jackson's untimely death.
It was in 1996 that the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, came to Mumbai for what would be a historic but never again to be repeated concert in the country. It was perhaps one of his last big shows, and one that reached out to an audience which had never seen him in the flesh. Those who caught a glimpse of him on Marine Drive that November evening, blowing kisses into the crowd in his trademark red jacket with gold buttons, still shiver with delight at the memory.
For those in the packed Andheri Sports Complex the same evening, it will always be remembered as the show of a lifetime. After 1997, Jackson refrained from touring, and it’s with great enthusiasm that his fans looked forward to his comeback, which was scheduled in London this July. Jackson had sealed a deal for 50 shows, for which he had been rehearsing as recently as Wednesday evening. Jackson may have hoped to better his finances through the tour — finances that have been revealed as hopelessly tangled, beyond the headline figure of a whopping $400 million debt. The 50-year-old Jackson passed away after a cardiac arrest in Los Angeles on June 25.
India woke up to a morning of radio tribute shows, a deluge of news about his life and death. His Indian fans, like elsewhere in the world, used Internet networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to flood cyberspace with “MJ RIP” status messages. So much so that Twitter crashed several times during the day and Google too was overwhelmed. While joining a worldwide community his Indian fans tweeted and facebooked tearfully that “An era has gone by”, and wished Jackson “happiness in his afterlife”. A colleague remarked that “Moonwalking has been paused on earth forever.” And so, MJ’s patented signature 45-degree pointed shoes are back in fashion, as many people log on to view the same pair of shoes that took Michael Jackson to stardom.
In India, it was Jackson, the dancer-performer — and not just the singer — that regaled even small towns. Kids learnt their first dance moves through Jackson’s break dance and moonwalk, which they saw on television. At a time when English lyrics were still alien to many Indian households, Jackson’s words in “Beat It” and “Smooth Criminal” became a rage and were soon identified as “modern, Western music.”
A good decade after Jackson-mania had caught on in the country, his 1996 show in Mumbai created a frenzy. Sabbas Joseph of Wizcraft International Entertainment, the company which organised the concert, recalls a packed house. “It’s peculiar that after just one show on this side of the world he returned to the West. The show held here was spectacular — be it the technology used, or its theme. He descended on the stage from a spacecraft and the entire show was themed around the concept of time. I remember he performed big hits like ‘The Earth Song’,” he says. The musician was taken good care of by the Shiv Sena government then in power in Maharashtra. Jackson even met Bal Thackeray during his stay. “Jackson was also keen to meet Mother Teresa,” Joseph adds, but the meeting could not be arranged.
Many fans, a trifle guiltily now that he’s dead, remain sceptical and vocal about his sharp rise and decline. The charges of child molestation are not easily forgotten. A churlish status message on Facebook read: “MJ, don’t go molesting small boys in netherworld”. While some sympathise with his creditors for the tangled assets and debts he leaves behind, many others argue that he owed his eccentric and scandal-ridden life to his embittered childhood. The many pressures of over 40 years in the public eye couldn’t have been easy, even for a star who took the stage as part of the band Jackson 5 with his brothers, as a child.
Not since the American presidential elections — and, more recently — the Iranians’ struggle against their rulers — has the Web seen such intense activity and emotion. In the 1980s, much before the Internet offered fast music downloads, Jackson’s albums had sold 750 million worldwide, making him the biggest-selling Western pop musician.
His tracks are among the most accessible in pop, and he can perhaps be called the first modern pop star. He gathered, from his career’s high 1982 Thriller days to the less popular 2001 Invincible album, a volume of fan following comparable to that of Elvis Presley and the Beatles. He was and is the King of Pop.
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