MJ The Phenomenon

Writing about Michael is like my drop in the ocean of posts.

I've not read anything what the media has written and shown about the death and his legacy (which you could have escaped knowing only if you were born after the mid eighties). Since the news never stopped coming from his quarters, I treated the news of his death in the morning with a wearied sigh: another thing Michael had gotten into.

Late at night, I was thinking about Michael after I remembered a friend who was absolutely crazy about him and even after the disastrous Blood on The Dance Floor was always sure that the old Mike phenomenon was just around the corner.

Perhaps this is a hyperbole but I do not mean it to be - I've really thought about it and in my opinion no man singly has had such an impact in the recent decades as Michael. In a time of Hindi newspaper, AIR and DD, every kid in our servants' quarters knew about MJ. Maiku Lal Jai Kisan - remember?

Eighties was about two phenomena - MJ and ET. Gandhi, Eddie Murphy, Brooke Shields, GnR, Faith, Whitney Housten, Whoopi -- everything followed in the wake of these two; and MJ was a hundred ETs put together. Fashion, Dancing, Music, Videos - he defined it for a decade. And curiously, he was without a race. Black, White, Brown, Yellow - he was accepted as someone belonging to everyone and even alien to the very humanity.

I'm not talking about the man here but the phenomenon.

Just as AB remains the first in Hindi movies, Chaplin in Hollywood -- men without equals in their impact -likewise MJ in world Music.

As a sample, watch the clip below from a Rajnikant movie and wonder how in a pre-globalisation world a Tamil midget can imitate an artist in LA.

By the way, I think the clip from 00:50 to 00:57 is the greatest cinematic moment I've ever seen.