Michael Jackson's death: The end of an era

So I am at the metro station today and a gleaming LCD display shows something in Danish. It has Michael Jackson’s photograph on it and I immediately assume ‘Whacko Jacko’ is making a trip to Copenhagen thanks to my serious limitations with the Danish language. I then come into work, as always, and go to Times of India to see what chaos is breaking loose in my blessed nation when, it hits me like a ton of bricks – Michael Jackson is dead. I immediately find myself saying, despite never having been a hardcore fan of the big MJ – ‘O shoot! Damn….!’ I then spend the next few minutes reading the article and letting this absolute surprise sink into me. There is something about this news that just doesn't fit. Michael Jackson is not supposed to die. I am not sure why, but it just doesn't fit.

I guess it is with this unnerving stab of unprecedented wonder that the entire world (or at least most part of it) will react to the sudden exit of Michael. As a teen I still remember going crazy about the bass heavy beats of his ‘Thriller’, ‘Bad’, ‘Dangerous’ albums that somehow seemed to ooze with the ache of a human being who genuinely cared for others. Like him or hate him you could never ignore him – a cliché that has been oft used with over hyped and ridiculously revered B-City demi-Gods. But sadly, not one of them had either the magnetic appeal or the worldwide recognition like Michael did. If not for anything else, he will definitely be missed for being that one singular idol who, despite the variations of his life in the last decade, was always making news for all sorts of reasons. I am sure there are millions still out there who admired him and stood by him in times when he was accused of a dozen heinous crimes. Good, bad and ugly – Michael had seen them all.

There was a certain sense of being surreal that he always pulled off with aplomb. A factor that inspired various dancing styles (like the moonwalk), a dozen flashy attires and even the crotch grabbing frenzy that became synonymous with being able to dance like him. Our own local celebs like Prabhudeva and even Govinda for that matter were often compared, albeit quite unfairly, with Michael since that was the sort of benchmark he had created for himself. I say unfairly since I have always believed that any form of art is truly subjective. Each one has its own flair, its own charisma and its own worth. A fact that we Indians rarely acknowledge.

But then that is that. After half a century of what is easily one of the most eventful lives of our times, the King is dead. An era of what was possibly a historic time for music in humankind's existence, is now over. The man who was possibly the most favored piñata of the media who never missed a chance to bash him up till he was shivering with pain, is now going to be once again their feed for one last time. But all I hope now is that even in this untimely departure the King has taken, there is still some sense of respect that is given to his life and his achievements. One cannot weigh Michael against the scandals because rarely has there been a celeb who hasn’t been involved in anything outrageous. Heck, isn’t that why they are called that? But even so, I think its time to turn our backs to the stage, grab our groins and sweep back in the moon walk one last time saying ‘Michael, you will be missed you crazy freak.’

I am reminded of a popular joke we used to have in school that even after a nuclear holocaust the only two things that would survive would be a cockroach and Michael. I guess the roach won.

Rest in peace Mike.

One of my all time MJ favorites - JAM!

Want justice in India? Get raped by a celeb.

Hypocrisy and India are like illegitimate children sprung from an awkward consummation between two diabolic parasites. The moment the sub-continent got cut at its umbilical cord in ‘47, so did the sense of everything else that once made any sort of sense. Among them, was our understanding of who gets noticed and why. Even if it means in a context as grotesque as violating a woman’s honor. This, from a land that can’t stop going blue in the face with incessant browbeating about it being that cultural nest where ‘woman is God’. Bah! What a load of steaming fresh horse dung!

Take the lackluster (pun intended!) fate that a certain ‘Shiney’ B-City chap is currently going through. No sooner had the victim of his wile libido (or so we are told!) sniffed her way into the police station with her tears emerging from behind moist lashes laced with atomic hints of a certain famous film wallah’s climactic essence, the entire nation was rubbed in the face with unprepared seeming nervous correspondents standing in front of garishly audacious bungalows screaming speculations into their microphones. Amid this horrid cacophony laced with the humdrum of loud human emotions was buried that O-too-obvious query – Why? For the sake of all that is good and pure…why?

Why was it that a crime that the country has witnessed since time immemorial was suddenly being shouted into deafening loudspeakers just because a known face was involved? Why is this victim more important than those tens of thousands of nameless faceless and, now, honor-less (some lifeless!) girls who lost the toes on their feet to the frostbite that ate into them by the administration’s frozen attitudes? Is it not shameful that such a heinous crime becomes front page news just because it has a known name attached to it like an unwanted finger? This – right here – is where India can never claim to be a ‘developed nation’. A classic case of misplaced ideologies sits bare like the shame of that unfortunate woman right here. This moment, this sentence. A point in time where the governing bodies burp out regulations to the commoners who go to hell and back while feeding fresh strawberries to the ‘alleged famous’ while telling the world – ‘O but they are being treated like the rest! Like common people!’

Are they? If they were then why is this rape incident major news? Should it also not have disappeared in that minuscule five line small print in the seventh page of that unknown daily with minimal readership? If they were then should not the reporters make this a spicy Page 3 item and brush it off as just another part of their hedonistic lives where they get to play the divine role of choosing what is worth our ears and what is not? If they were then shouldn’t this ‘Shiney’ chap be roaming around trying to find a good lawyer to fight for him so that he doesn’t get his derriere rammed into in the darkness of the rat infested prison cells haunted by the memories darker than the night? Given the coverage he has received in the last 48 hours, it is suffice to say – there is nothing ‘common’ about it. Never has been. Never will be.

It is in this deep seeded double standard that the difference between the India that is and the India that the world is being told about stands naked like a wailing orphan next to a canine friendly garbage mound. The stink it raises here is far too obvious to our trained nostrils. It is here that we frown, nod our heads disbelievingly and say ‘BS! Had this fellow not been a poster boy for so long then none of this would have even reached the ear of his own neighbor. Let alone the entire nation.’

I really don’t care what happens in this case. At the risk of being portrayed as someone who doesn’t care for a girl’s honor (Shame! Blasphemy!) my real concern is with the extremely skewed context behind this mess. Is the girl telling the truth? Did he really do it? Or is he the victim of some bizarre ploy and getting pounded meaninglessly amid two dozen photographers trying to take a picture of his innocent eyes? Or is this all a disgusting set up to get him into the public eye just before the release of his next B-City venture? I don’t give a damn. My trouble is that I suddenly feel shortchanged that I belong to a country where being raped by a celebrity is the only way to get anything remote to ‘justice’.

Sick.