Arunoday Singh

I decided to finally stop procrastinating and go see Michael Jackson’s “This is It” tonight.

Moment of silence…………………………………………………………………

Words cannot begin to describe the nostalgia, the euphoria, the overwhelming shaking of the booty, and the heartbreak I felt whilst watching.  I have loved that man’s music ever since the first day I heard “Thriller” playing, in July 1991.  In Swedish House Dormitory at Kodaikanal International School.  I was all of seven and a half years old, and I had told my parents the year before that I wanted to go away to boarding school.  I have no idea what had gotten into me to leave my comfortable home and my doting parents and move to the other end of the bloody country, up a mountain, and into a boarding school.

I remember the green stucco walls of the dorm.  I remember the alien sounds coming out of the Tamil maids as they cajoled, pleaded, screamed, and jovially pushed all of us into the cafeteria for dinner.  I remember the white tiles on the floor that smelled like spilled spaghetti sauce and Coca-Cola spills.  I remember the heady aromas wafting out of the kitchen which wasn’t really separated from the cafeteria by anything except one of those saloon doors that they show in the old Western films.  And every  now and then, Mary, the chef’s wife would step through like Clint Eastwood and thump unidentifiable stuff into the bowls in front of us.

I remember that first dinner, sitting at a table alone, watching everyone so comfortable with each other and themselves.  I tried to understand all the jokes, decipher the stories being told and the references they used.  I knew nothing, and noone.  I had grown up on a pretty secluded farm, with my only contact with kids my age at the local public school where we all had worn uniforms and not really talked to each other.

That’s when I heard the music.  Michael Jackson playing on the most beat up tape recorder I had ever seen.  But this kid called Dhanus Nair, who would later become my room-mate and my friend, put it on and did an impromptu jig in the middle of the cafeteria.  Our dorm parent, Mrs. Lazarus, a tall statuesque, Amazon of a woman (who later become as close to me as my own mother, through my time in that dorm, and later, as I moved on, grew up and grew out) come storming through the doors like one of the ghouls breaking down the door in the video.  But I, sitting alone in the corner, was the only one who noticed her smile when she turned away again to walk out after chastising Dhanus.

That smile was the first moment I felt the weight and the fear lift off my chest.  And I’ve always associated that feeling with Michael Jackson’s music.  It’s one of those strange psychological associations that happens.  Doesn’t have to be logical, doesn’t even have to matter to anyone else.

Till this day, all I have to do, to feel like a kid with an entire universe of adventure ahead of him, is to play Michael Jackson.

You were an angel Michael.  An angel we raised up then tore down and threw away.  How we wailed when you died…how we beat our chests.  But what we cried for wasn’t that you were gone, we cried that we had ever known a moment of doubt about you.  That the world made us stop loving you as much, even for a little while.

Forgive us. 

And thank you.

For the music, for that feeling, for the love.

You were it.

Have fun teaching the angels how to Moonwalk.

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