Skip to main content

Michael Jackson-Can there be another?

“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities” Albert Einstein

This fits well with MJ’s life- a life marked by extraordinary highs and lows. The world has still not got over Michael Jackson’s death. Surprisingly, the usual ridicule has given way to awe. May his soul rest in peace.

I have always been a big fan of him. His plastic surgeries made him look like a ghost. His interviews sounded like he was spaced out. He walked in a different world that we couldn’t touch. I realized that MJ’s power was in breaking away from the limitations of the world and not in fitting in.

To me MJ was more of a spirit than a human. He was a spirit that was uncomfortable in this world, uncomfortable about the rules and norms and the limitations. He dared to create his own world and he scaled new heights by doing so.


People who know him cannot stop talking about his humility. He made his fans feel as if he was their fan than the other way around. He always yearned for perfection and he knew that the world was no place for that. He spoke of healing and actually did that in his own way.

MJ was a little child trapped in an adult’s body. As a child he was forced to become an adult and when he grew up he regressed back. He held on to the innocence and sweetness and was untainted by the norms. The wisdom of a child is much more than any adult, they say. That was true with Michael and that gave him the immense power to shake the world. He left a great legacy behind, the legacy of a man who never failed to dream, who retained the purity and innocence of a child and yet wielded invincible power that millions can only imagine. And throughout his highs and lows he remained humble and sweet.

Ridiculers do not understand that this man could not be normal with the kind of creativity and power that he was blessed with. Normalcy would not have created MJ-the legend. That’s a good price to pay, given what MJ achieved within his limited time.

I loved the memorial and was touched by how lovely his kids have turned out. Biological or not, they love him and he has brought them up really well. He lived a life that we cannot relate to. But we can never deny the fact that he gave back much more than what the world gave him. He was and will always remain the ‘King of pop’.

The only downer was the song "We have come to see the king' used for MJ. But I was relieved that Pastor Lucius Smith put things in perspective in his closing prayer by saying "The King of Pop must bend his knee to the King of Kings"

“In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.”
—Michael Jackson

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Christianity and the Homosexuality issue

     This is something that has been in my mind lately. More so because of how the fundamentalist and evangelical churches point at Homosexuals as the culprits for any disaster - natural or otherwise. If there is a hurricane, prominent preachers don't waste any time in accusing them as the cause of God's wrath. There is much outcry against Homosexual marriages. As a practising Christian, this disturbs me a lot. If we have to go by the Jesus Christ portrayed in the Bible, I am sure that if he were to walk as a human in this century, he wouldn't refuse a party invitation from them.  All creation is beautiful. If someone is created that way, perhaps there is a reason to it as Christ rightly said in Matt 19  "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake" It's funny ...

To the operation theatre and back

There are times when we understand the gravity of a situation without letting emotions cloud our judgement. It helps maintain our objectivity to support a friend. Rarely, that someone is you and that moment makes you an observer too. This also showed me what authentic leadership is. I had a presentation to the Global CEO Ben Verwayen. My reporting manager is Vishy Poosala, the CTO of Alcatel-Lucent Messaging and Head of Bell Labs. I asked him to present and he chose to cancel it because he wanted me to take the credit for my work.  We visited Dr. Disha Sridhar at Motherhood, Bangalore with a positive on the urine pregnancy test on 6th Oct. We made plans to manage the pregnancy. Since  the ultrasound slots were full at the hospital, we got the TVS done in the nearby test centre Clumax. The ultrasound couldn’t detect the gestational sac in the uterus yet though the urine pregnancy test was positive. There was nothing to indicate a tubular pregnancy either.  Dr. Dis...

Open letter to Chetan Bhagat on his TOI Article on women 'Don't worry be happy'

Chetan, Insulted! - Yes, that's what I felt after reading your column ' Don't worry, Be happy ' that has been lapped up with great gusto as an inspirational article. While preaching against the 'regressive attitude' of the Indian society, you conveniently forget that you are peddling the same garbage in a shiny package. You say // It would be a universe full of messy, aggressive and ego-maniacal males running the world, trying to outdo each other for no particular reason. There would be body odour, socks on the floor and nothing in the fridge to eat. The entertainment industry would die. Who wants to watch movies without actresses?//    Touche. Did you actually write that to make women feel indispensable! Should I feel proud with this new found wisdom that the world might collapse without women titillating men on screen, cooking food for men or picking up after men? As a child, I noticed most of the women in the family embracing life as handmaids to thei...