Scribblings

In J.R.R Tolkien’s epic fantasy, Lord of the Rings; he writes about how earth (Arda) came into being and here is how. Eru (the Almighty) teaches his Holy Ones (Ainur, independent thoughts of Eru, forced into being) the theme of music. From this theme they form a template and of this template, they make the Arda (Earth). This world with heaven and hell is formed through the power of Music.

So where am I going with this, obviously to Michael Jackson. After his passing away, I felt a range of emotions. From shock to pain to anger to sorrow then was amused by the reactions of the celebrity world, people who happily trashed him before were getting their name printed with great things to say about him. How they shared this and inspired by that. So after a while, it became a publicity bandwagon. Same was the response from the public. I always knew he had a big fan following, but this? From record album sales to crashing servers with that many hits. So what once was a fan’s cry for his biggest loss can easily be mistaken to somebody searching for their 15 mins in limelight. This is the reason; I decided to go through this in a silent tantrum.

Then I went to see “This is it”. Yes, I was afraid. Afraid that they would further monetize our loss and it would all be a big gala of stars ‘sharing’ their views on the great one. And I didn’t see it on the first day, why? Because, call me crazy; but I didn’t want this to end. I don’t want to move on, I don’t want the world to make money off him and set him aside as they have done million times before. So with this fear, I approached the movie and I’m happy to say, it was beautiful, elegant and fun but most of all it showed me a little bit about the man himself.

People said he was too weak to even climb up the stage. He could not only do that, but for most part out perform fellow dancers, kids half his age. He was electric, he was methodical, he was polite, loving, courteous and you could see that he was not doing this for money or anything that menial but for something much deeper. In one scene, no not a scene, nothing in this documentary is acted out. These are the real events from his filmed rehearsal footage. He tells Michael Bearder (the music director), that he needs to slow the beats down. He hums it to him; you can see his eager face trying to get everything right. He patiently walks him through the entire sequence.

In all this, what struck me the most was that, how polite he was. There were million “I’m sorry”, a million “I love you” and a million “God bless you’. He stops the rehearsal at one point and says the ear phones feels like somebody is pounding on my ear. Kenny Ortega (Director) looks at him panicky and says, “Sorry Michael, I’ll change it”. Horror struck Jackson tells him quickly that that’s not the issue and he is simply commenting that it will take sometime for him to get used to it and he was actually apologizing.

This was indeed the movie I wanted to see, in a way this was the movie I had to see. Michael Jackson was far from done; this is a proof that he still had that spark, that magic. More so, this is a proof that this human being we see, dancing and singing and relishing the thing he does with all his soul was indeed god’s gift to us. And a sad reminder that, we are not good enough to hold onto them.

I don’t want to keep shoveling scenes from the movie, but I got to end this with another, they put him on a raising platform and Kenny Ortega tells him that its set at a medium height and that it can go higher. Jackson looks mischievously at him and says, “Why did you tell me that? Now, obviously I want to go higher”.

How can you argue with that!

God bless you Michael, we so dearly miss you