I was 8-years-old i.e. 1995 when I was first introduced to Michael Jackson. Not that he did not exist before that (infact he was at his prime in '95), but, I simply never found any of his songs appealing until then.
However, my youngest brother, who was hardly two-years-old at the time, took some great liking to his moves. He loved MJ so much that he got my dad buy video cassettes of the making of some of his biggest music videos. So we had the making of Thriller, Moonwalker, Beat it, Bad, Black or White, Man in the mirror and Remember the Time... in less than few weeks in our house and running on our TV like 24/7.
Often, since we had nothing interesting to do, we tagged along on with him, lying on the bed, endlessly watching MJ sing and dance. Thriller for that matter was interesting, it was like watching a Horror Movie.... so we got hooked to it. Within months, the whole family became an MJ fan.... quite late in the day, but, still we did. Our rooms were full with his posters and both my brothers and I would dance like crazy to his songs, miming gibberish (we never learnt the lyrics).
I remember my brother played MJ and me Naomi Cambell... and we danced to remember the time. Over the years, I started respecting his music, with Heal the World, We are the World, You are not alone and Music and Me being my all time favourites.
MJ had a cynical side to him, but his music balanced the uneven. And though we all thought he had gone crazy and detested his obsession for his skin colour, we could never really manage to have a strong opinion about him. For us he was MJ, flawlessly the best the pop industry had ever seen. I love you MJ... your music has made my childhood memories extra-special...RIP
