Friday, June 26, 2009

Michael Jackson :-(

Strange! The thought that Michael Jackson is no more fills me with this odd feeling of hollowness. I have never seen the man who inhabited a world not even remotely connected with mine. Yet, the sense of loss, the sadness is real – though I don’t quite understand it.

He entered the world of our imagination in the early seventies when I was a graduate student in St Teresa’s college, Ernakulam. The Jackson’s Five became a rage, and Michael Jackson, the youngest of the brothers,– everybody’s pet, tho he inspired in us a sense of awe. Little did we realize then that he would become what he did!

Those were not the days of TV when we could get an occasional glimpse of the pop stars, or of the Internet and you tube when we could see them whenever we wanted. Facilities such as music downloads or copying into Cd's did not figure even in our wildest dreams. Radiogram and tape recorder were the only mode of listening to music. I am trying to recollect how we became so familiar with this prodigious singer, given the limited opportunities to get even a glimpse of his pictures, or listen to his compositions.

WE used to listen to Radio Ceylon which was the best radio station for western pop music. Also, The Voice of America Morning Show, which my friends and I listened to religiously, even on working days, was another source of information about the happenings in the music world. There were other stations too like radio Australia but the first two had the best reception.

I remember how, the minute a Jackson’s Five number was announced, I’d run to the telephone to ring up my friend - just in case she wasn’t tuned in. Mostly she’d be, and would be irritated by the distraction.

If I remember right, Looking through the Window by the Jackson’s Five consecutively topped the hit parade of Junior Statesman (popularly known as JS), a Magazine which gave news about the jet set crowd around the world, the Bollywood masala and news about the music world. It was a very popular magazine among my friends. The Jackson’s Five used to figure regularly in this magazine, and we got our first glimpse of the boy Michael Jackson from JS. For some reason, the magazine was wound up and we resented it intensely.

Strange that I should be talking about all this in a post dedicated to Michael Jackson. The news of his death took me back to those days when he entered our imaginary world of music as a sensational prodigy.

His gradual metamorphosis into an iconic figure was a big disillusionment for me. Here, I speak only for myself. A prude that I am, I saw it as an eventual loss of innocence. But, I felt relieved and vindicated (?) whenever he brought out his fabulous albums. When the charge of child abuse was slapped on him, I remained neutral – refused to feel, for Jackson’s personal life had already turned out to be a let down. But then, I wanted to believe that everyman is innocent till found guilty, and that there are a lot of people out there who’d go to any extent to extract money from celebrities.

I repeat. It is very strange that someone who had, has, or never will have anything to do, most remotely, with my world can affect me so much by his departure. In this context I am reminded of what my son told me how he felt when Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed.
“The same strange feeling I had when Pope John 11 passed away”, he said.

Needless to say I was scandalized that he could talk of the two in the same breath.

“But you were very distressed when the Pope died. Do you feel the same now?”

Then he explained.

“Distressed? Not the way i felt when the Pope died.Not at the rational level of consciousness. The sense of Good and Evil happens at that rational, conscious level. The same feeling I’m talking of happens at another level. It is a feeling of loss. These are people whom I have grown up with, they inhabit our consciousness as permanent residents. We unconsciously relate to them as people who’ll always be around. And when they disappear permanently, it is a strange feeling.”

How right he is! Good, bad or ugly belongs to the thinking, rational and conditioned level of human consciousness. At that level, we are judgmental; we are governed by a certain value system. But there is another level to our mind in which a world takes shape in ways unknown to us. Many of its inhabitants have nothing to do with the small physical world in which we function on a daily basis. The values that regulate our lives are not applicable there. In that world, we are more charitable human beings , willing to give the devil his due, and everyone the benefit of the doubt. The good and the bad coexist there, peacefully, for that world is free from moral compulsions.

I don’t know if this mind probe is making any sense. But I had to sort it out with myself why I felt this terrible sense of loss at the death of a pop musician who is so completely removed from my world in every sense of the word.

May his soul rest in peace.

12 comments:

  1. That's ashame. He had some good music. More and more people are dying young.

    May Michael Jackson rest in peace despite some of the negative things said about him.

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  2. The last 3 paras were profound!!!!!!

    "“Distressed? No. Not at the rational level of consciousness. Good or evil happens at that surface, rational, conscious level. The same feeling I’m talking of happens at another level. It is a feeling of loss. These are people whom I have grown up with, they inhabit our consciousness as permanent residents. We unconsciously relate to them as people who’ll always be around. And when they disappear permanently, it is a strange feeling.”

    How right he is. Good, bad or ugly belongs to the thinking rational and conditioned level of human consciousness. At that level, we are judgmental; we are governed by a certain value system. But there is another level to our mind in which a world takes shape in ways unknown to us. Many of its inhabitants have nothing to do with our real-time world. The values that regulate our lives are not applicable there. In that world, we are more charitable human beings , willing to give the devil his due, and everyone the benefit of the doubt. The good and the bad coexist there, peacefully, for that world is free from moral compulsions.
    "

    I find this to be very true. SO who is the philosopher? You or Mathew? :)

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  3. @ deepak
    :-) mathew, i guess. he's a natural
    @ ace
    thanks for visiting.

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  4. http://karunic.blogspot.com/2009/05/of-stripes.html

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  5. I grew up on his music, loved the compositions black or white, They dont care about us and we are the world, loved to see him dance and was amazed at the frenzy he created in his live audience. Its definitely the end of an era in music.

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  6. @ mathew
    thanks. guess that's the answer-every age has icons, and when they die - no mattr what they stand for - there is a sense of loss.
    @ sujatha
    and we have seen a world before MJ. it was different, believe me.

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  7. It is sad that he is gone. We were introduced to him during the mid eighties .. he was already a star then. I will not try to name the songs that left a mark in our life as it would be a futile exercise. In those days we only saw the entertainer part of him and swayed the moment he was on the screen.
    But it was much later that I got a feel of the other facet of his life. Being a African American is not the best thing to happen in a society which was just coming out of ruthless discrimination. On one hand you deal the pressure of being so successful at such a ong age and on the other hand you have to deal with not being accpeted as equal in the very society that your live. (A society which did not allow them to ride the same bus) An African American collegue was once telling me that all those pressure has drove him to go for multiple skin transplantation etc ...
    But at the end of the day MJ was a great musician of our time and His Loss is a Great Loss to the world of music ...

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  8. "We unconsciously relate to them as people who’ll always be around. And when they disappear permanently, it is a strange feeling.”

    :)

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  9. My last name begins with a P, possibly for procrastinator. I’ve gotten much better over the years, rarely delaying things these days, but when I heard of Michael Jackson’s death I found myself scouring for all the kinds of information about him that I, as a huge admirer of his music, had planned to gather one day…one of these days…some day soon…and thus the days went by, and now it’s a quarter of a century later, and the man is no more.
    So now I’m busy watching some of his videos that I meant to watch fifteen years ago, replaying incredulously his rubber-jointed lightning moves, his ballet-like poses, and the Motown 25th anniversary show where he introduced the moonwalk to the world. I am finding out that, while I always knew he was way way more than a great dancer which is what one of the editorials in The Hindu reduced him to, he had written “Billie Jean” and many of his other brilliant songs. A jazz musician I know here in New York talked to me about the sophistication of Jackson’s band, their innovative use of the synthesizer in the 70s, and so on; he doesn’t think, and I fully agree, that popular music of that calibre exists any more. Jackson was completely focused on his work, and no surprise, I don’t think one couldn’t compose and choreograph and perform like that if one was not. I’m faithfully watching re-runs of old interviews where Jackson talks about how, as a little kid going straight to the recording studio after schooling, he would be in tears because children would be playing in the park that he passed but he couldn’t join them because he would be recording until night. I watch the American media mourn and idolize a man that they had hounded and mocked when it suited them, and I silently curse their hypocrisy, as I do quite often.
    I had the fortune of watching Jackson in concert in Bombay in 1996, and I have forgotten most of it, like I do everything, except the moment that he suddenly froze in silhouette, in his trademark pose in “Billie Jean”, hat tilted and knees bent, and Andheri stadium which was packed and screaming, fell silent at that incredible sight. I hope, over the years, my lousy memory doesn’t let that golden moment slip by!

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  10. @ anita
    you aren't happy about the Hindu editorial - u shud read the New Indian express one by aditya sinha(associate editor, i think). the guy cudnt separate the man from the artist.felt like writing and telling him that byron was a brute, wilde was gay, blake was a freak and shakespeare was -god knows what!

    he wrote so dismissively about MJ

    lucky you. I cudnt make it to his show in mumbai - but i remeber our stiff and conservative neighbur demonstrating his moon walk and all of us stifling giggles.

    @ sumandebray
    yes. the black skin white mask syndrome must be a terrible thing for a genius to deal with

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  11. Again very beautifully written. The last few paragraphs sums it up so well. Makes me realize how many post I missed reading.

    Its acutally weird, that one should feel this sense of emptiness with a person who is not exactly close to us but then he was a Genius! It's been really sad watching all his old interviews and clips on his life. Hoping MJ find peace. God Bless his soul.

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  12. Mathew, you should do Philosophy as a major alongside organic chemistry! You do "explain" to the extent one can explain it, that irrational feeling of losing someone one has never met. I could never form an opinion about the charges of paedophilia against Michael Jackson, for various reasons, but that very serious charge aside, his "weirdnesses" were all personal and directed towards himself and not against people -- his changing looks, his peculiar way of protecting his kids from the public eye, etc etc. So it's entirely his business and so, as you say, Kochuthress, who are we to sit in judgement. Ah well. Maybe he's finally found some peace!

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