Running on the treadmill in Gold’s Gym watching all the mourners pay tearful tributes to Michael Jackson, I just could not help wondering why I am left feeling so untouched about his death…
I grew up at the heights of the Thriller and Bad mania, and although I listened to his music and gaped open-mouthed at his dancing, even then I did not quite understand the fandom. I just went along with the crowd and pretended to be “with it”, although I far preferred listening to oldie Kishore Kumar hindi songs.
Today, I have the same feeling of deja vu. I am again left unmoved while everyone has gone into hysteria mode about the death of the “King of Pop”.
Uh..sorry guys, I just don’t get it.
He has not had a best-selling album in years. He’s had one sorry scandal after the other -and all the scandals were of a pretty disturbing nature. Dangling a small baby dangerously from a balcony, supposed molestation of small boys (even if he was innocent, which is quite possible, I find it very creepy that he shared his bed with small star-struck boys), the drugs, the plastic surgeries, the strange interviews, the sleeping in a pressurized oxygen chamber, the strange and unconvincing marriages (and children)…do we really need more examples of how fragile his mental state must have been?
Reading news reports about his death and the state his health was in, I just could not help feeling that maybe this was a welcome relief for a troubled singer who really had no clue how to live his life. At the time he died, he was bald, weighed 51 kg (through constant starvation), broke, and dependent on unscrupulous doctors to provide him medication that he was probably not supposed to have.
Hopefully, he is in a better place wherever he is…
And I will save my emotions for the everyday comedies/tragedies that happen to people who I actually know and love.
Farewell MJ!
