Day 220: The World's Greatest Entertainer

I had written here about how I used to be a die-hard fan of Michael Jackson. In fact, there has only been one person whose die-hard fan I can claim to be and that would be MJ. And today is his first death anniversary.

I would have thought that I was over and above my craze for him, but it hit me once again out of the blue today. As soon as I got into the cab from the airport, the radio was playing only MJ songs as a tribute to him. The same thing happened when I went to Little India and back for dinner. There are his pictures and videos coming up again on every site, and messages about him were dominating Twitter. The songs from the cab stayed in my head and I have spent the whole evening looping the relooping his songs and watching his videos on the computer. Once again the childhood memories associated with his songs and videos flowed in and filled up my mind. But also with it, it reminded me of what is possible to achieve in this world with a lot of hard work. And am not talking about wealth and fame etc. but about the precision and wonder you can bring to art.

Michael Jackson's songs, dance, choreography, videos, stage shows, attires even...reached dizzying heights of success and provided such universal entertainment. To be made synonymous with any form of art in itself just a mind-blowing achievement and he had managed to achieve that in a few fronts, not just one. And all this by a single person. That is just incredible. Whether you like it or not, he had people from about a 100+ countries swooning over his work. This unprecedented appeal would be hard to beat for a while and is a testament of the sheer quality of work he produced. And this quality in so many areas, could not have been achieved without a humungous amount of work supporting the innate talent.

To me, that's inspiring. And today was spent on enjoying and being inspired by the entertainment that continues to live on post his demise. Not attending his live concert when he came to Mumbai more than a decade ago, would remain one of the biggest regrets I have. Now, that would have been one heck of a beautiful day for me! It also reminds me that if you really, really want to do something in life, whether seeing a new place or going for that concert of your idol, you absolutely must not delay it because things don't wait.

So here is to Michael Jackson, the World's Greatest Entertainer. Rest in peace.

780 more to go.