MJ syndrome

The newspapers, the television channels, the internet: today MJ is all over. There is shock, grief, and a standing ovation for the king of pop's swan song. Newspapers have written sympathetic paeans on the rise and rise of the moonwalker, who then got sucked into a quagmire of controversies.
However, one newspaper has not mentioned MJ's death on the front page. I was surprised, but also shocked that it did not mention the pop icon, who revolutionised the concept of music videos; the man who made the common man in India stand up and say, “I listen to western music”.
Kolkata's Telegraph is the paper I am referring to. Instead of the news of MJ’s death, it carried a story on how the Kolkata western music lovers hated to be associated with MJ's genre of music.
But my shock/surprise turned into a feeling of admiration, and then introspection for its content. Admiration because it captured the mood of the elite “rock bands” of the times. Also because the paper risked its readership, risked not covering MJ’s death the way other newspapers have.
Introspection, because it clearly reflected the duality, snobbery or even hypocrisy in me as a teenager or youth.
There was this English-speaking, Yes Prime Minister-watching, party-going youth living in Kolkata’s posh addresses (read Southern Avenue/Ballygunge), listening to Bach and Beethoven for their classical cravings, and turning to Beatles, Elvis, Bread, America and Floyd to whet their rock appetite.
And, then there was this Hum Log-Buniyaad-watching "other group, who got smitten by the “pop” bug when Doordarshan brought Beat It to their drawing rooms when it first telecast the Grammy awards ceremony live. This was the "Western Music" for them, having been fed with Bappi Lahiri and Lakshmikant-Pyerlal genre of Hindi music. And, they lapped it up.
Western music as a concept had been restricted to the LP records adorning the shelves of the elite, the self-styled music connoisseurs, for whom MJ was an anathema. They were the beautiful people, who wore branded jeans (attracting eyeballs), danced and drank in parties, made more friends, and got invited to more parties, and generally lead an “enviable, fun-filled” life.
That was how I, representing a middle-of-the-road group, felt. The group which never belonged to either sides!
I was unable to get away from the easy availability of Hindi film songs, being fed with that genre of music at the formative years of my life. So there were no Beatles, Bach, rock, folk or country, till I "discovered" Cliff Richards and his Summer Holidays. The western music bug bit me too. Suddenly, I had to belong. I had to be seen listening to English songs, like the elite party goers, like those who shunned Hindi film songs. So I started listening to the weekly programme on radio, Musical Band Box, for my initiation. I realised I had half-arrived. The other half, only when I was to be invited to parties. And, that never happened during my school-college days!!!
Then Beatles, Floyd, America, Bread flocked my shelves, vying for attention with hits of Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna and even Mithun Chakraborty.
But I was in the middle. I was not really into the English music circuit. I was still secretly (honestly that is the word) listening to latest Hindi film songs. After all, how can I get out of that diet that I had been fed with? I too shunned MJ, and his genre of music. Like Wham, or Boy George and Culture Club. I felt I shouldn’t be discussing MJ, who had stormed into the psyche of the masses. The hoi polloi had rejected MJ as too down-market. And, sadly, I became a ``me-too”.
On hindsight, I feel I had been so immature, so hypocritical. Like a worm that tried to be butterfly, a duckling desperate to be seen as a swan.
A few peacock feathers cannot make a peacock out of a crow. That was what I was trying to be.
On hindsight, I feel I lost my youth in this constant search for being noticed, to belong. What a waste of youth. Now I am trying to see things honestly. Like being proud to say “I love Sholay and Amitabh Bachchan”. Saying this then would have made me a stronger, but most important, an honest youth.