... Your Legend Ever Will

In the summer of 1987, I relocated to Calcutta. From a small town in North Bengal and getting enrolled to the most populous school in the world -- it was straight into the frying pan -- the highest I could score in Hindi in the first six months was 6 (out of 25) -- academically speaking, those were the most trying days of my school-life.

My early days in music-listening had always been a manifestation of a Debabrata, a Kanika, a Hemanta. Oh yes, thanks to my father, Rafi kept singing in our house too (but only a few Nazrul Geetis... no Hindi music mind you). While I was quite a late starter in Hindi music, my new school-mates were already on the fast track to the George Michaels and the Springsteens. When given a solitary chance to listen to any bit of Western music, this just-landed-in-Calcutta-tabla-player had no idea what Springsteen was crooning on the tapes -- I was quite content with my newly-found heroes... Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna ... under the strict tutelage of my cousin sister (who still remains a maestro as far as Hindi film music goes).

I think it was at Akash's residence in Golf Green sometime in 1988 that I listened to MJ for the first time. Not that I didn't hear MJ's name before. He did read about him in news snippets in Aajkaal - the only newspaper that entered our house throughout my school-life (till 12 that is). I did know that this guy had won so many Grammys and all that stuff -- but had never heard him sing. No question of borrowing any tape from my school friends since I didn't have a tape-recorder in my house. Besides, I was too shy to admit in school that I never heard MJ (!).

My first experience of hearing Jackson sing went over my head actually. I understood that he was furiously asking us to Beat at something - I had no idea what it was - but the music - the electric guitar got me on. I went from one song to the other, with Akash mumbling "Eki, etao shunish ni?" Later on, my favourite song in that album turned out to be the one which no one had much admired - P.Y.T.

I clearly remember it was a Sunday afternoon at Deepu's place when I saw him on a VCD. Holy Molly! With a jaw-dropping performance like that, how does he retain the energy to sing at the same time? How does he dance like that, defying several laws of Physics? What sort of dance is it, in the first place? I am sure those questions popped in a million minds, the first time each of them watched him.

Another MJ fan was born instantly.

My Thriller and Bad experiences were mainly confined to listening them at my friends' places because the only three music-emitting objects we had in our house was a Deltron radio, a HMV record player and my tablas (not sure if you hear me play you'd call that music). But as they say: Rakhe Hori Mare Ke -- enter Saswata a year later -- his father (would you believe it) was a great record collector and among his great collection donned an LP record called Thriller, the cover of which showed this guy wearing a glistening white coat (!) I remember exchanging 5 Tintins (I could have done with even 10) to bring home MJ for three full days. I literally memorised (with mostly incorrect lyrics in that non-internet era) every single track in that black vinyl disc during those 3 days and thanks to that non-cellphone-phone era, I managed to disappear from the scene for an additional 2 days to make MJ my most-coveted guest. Only MJ knows -- that during those 5 days he was worshiped in my house with far more grace than the Durga during the annual-5-day period in any other Bengali household.

Needless to say, the first ever poster to don my wall was the BAD poster. Well, it did come with its considerable share of "what-sort-of-poster-is-this" statements from my father as well as several "deoaler-rong-kharap-hoye-jaabe" (you are spoiling the paints on my wall) from our landlady -- but who cared? -- BAD never felt so GOOD !

Meanwhile, struggling to keep up with my English-affluent friends, I was already on my musical highway, riding on the Jackson-fever. I failed to (read: didn't want to) look beyond him for quite a few years and bluntly disregarded any other pop/rock singer's album I came across. Just like the archetypal comrade who'd kill to prove that the greatest politician to have ever walked on earth was Jyoti Basu, I had transformed myself into one who believed that MJ was THE greatest. Period. Cliff Richard was sheer mediocrity. Kishore and Rafi had taken the back seat long while ago.

No one has yet been able to capture the impossible suaveness and outwardly nimbleness of a dancer as Jackson did. His moonwalk completely rewrote the definition of male sexuality in music. However, I believe his biggest achievement in the world of music was to completely redefine the demographics of western pop music. Mind boggling sales in every possible corner of the earth, to drop the jaw of the avid pop-music listener, to pop the eye of the avid pop-music hater, raise every single hair of the fervent Mozart-worshipers and of course turn the head of most of our Shashtriya Sangeet performers. He did it all. Boasting of a fan club ranging from the rickshawalla in Mumbai to the US President, he was the perfect globaliser long before the globalisation balloon was floated. Its a feat, nobody... neither the Beatles nor Elvis or any other legend MJ was compared with, was being able to achieve. A living industry as he was, creating a number of Prabhudevas and Mithuns all across the planet, and ample material for the likes of Johny Levers to perform the same crass jokes on Maike-ayle again and again on stage, he wasn't without the numerous parasites around him.

Michael wouldn't be having them around him now.

And as our desi poet Javed Akhtar observed the other day..."Men are remembered for their work. When we read Shakespeare, we don't care to know how good a husband he was, how good a brother he was or how good a son he was.... we just read him... and then we conclude, that he is the greatest - sublime and ageless."

Michael, we know you led a life narrative worthy of Shakespeare's finest tragedies. But when you were on stage, you'd have made Shakespeare shake his leg as well.

Salutations!