Jackoo!

IT was Magic Jackson all the way. The back-breaking, breath-taking roller-coaster ride zipped through pages of the past, flipped through happenings in history, beyond the pyramids, the Sistine Chapel, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, Mother Teresa, racing to keep its date with an anxious audience in Shahaji Raje Bhosale Kreeda Sankul in uptown subur-ban Mumbai. The countdown— "attention please, only 30 minutes remain for HIStory to begin" in Hindi, English, French, German and Italian— had, however, begun long before the pelvic-pushing phenomenon actually touched the tarmac.

The fireworks had already been fuelled by stay orders, summons and suicidal threats from Michael Jackson Fashion Ltd and the Sena supremo's prodigal sibling, Ram-esh Thackeray. Much sound, much heat, much dust... BUT just ziltch compared to the real thing. In his MJ 2040 space capsule, the celeb time traveller cut across continents and broke boundaries before blasting the barriers of speed, sound and straight thinking at 9.17 pm with 200,000 watts of the highest-tech wizardry conceivable. "An air-conditioned tent specially constructed in an Indian setting, SFX, sound and music equipment worth several crores, a bullet-proof roof shipped from London," rattled off Nick Lewitt, chief production incharge for the ultimate entert- ainer. Jaws fell, pulse rates soared , imaginations and their inhabitors went berserk as HIStory and hysteria assumed unbelievable proportions. In a jiffy, Jackson stole the show from remix raja Bally Sagoo and Noble Savages who, earlier in the evening, had sung Mehbooba Mehbooba, Laung Lavacha, Chura Liya, I'm an Indian, Diggin' in the Nose punctuated by a periodic clamour of "we want Michael".

Crotch-clutching was culturally legit with Bal Thackeray, son Uddhav, nephew Raj, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and moral policeman, MaharashtraCultural Minister Pramod Navalkar in the Rs 15,000 VIP enclosure. Adding a tot of tinselto the blinding display of dare-devilry—Michael Jackson precariously perched on theedge of a crane for one of his tracks, resurrecting from the remains of a fire-ravagedcoffin in Thriller, looking larger-than-life in a screen spread for SmoothCriminal—were dumb-struck desi prima donnas. Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan and SunilShetty learning their first lesson in how action is spelt out the MJ way. Prabhu Deva,Alyque Padamsee, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Bose, Suneeta Rao, Shaan-Sagarika, Anu Kottoor,Jaaved Jaffrey, Sonali Bendre and Somy Ali were all grabbing a glareful of the greatestgig to hit India. One starry night earlier, the King had graced the glitterati with apassing glimpse of himself. In the 90-second appearing act, Shobha De and Anupam Khermanaged to shake hands with him. Southern superstar and the King’s clone Prabhu Devawas ecstatic: "I spent just one-and-a-half minutes with him but it was a dream cometrue."

 Not everyone was as overwhelmed. "As an entertainer, he is mesmerising;on a personal front, though, I wouldn’t cross the road to see him," observedWilliam Davies, a Mumbai-based Englishman. He added with a touch of sarcasm: "Thesecurity is not over-board but why do these cops keep repeating themselves?"Somewhere along the way, however, the 1,500-odd party-pooping police who had earlierfrisked the fun out of the fans forgot their real beat and tuned themselves into a newone. They looked regretful when a senior put them in their place. Meanwhile, the60,000-strong crowd wept with MJ during I’ll Be There; they gasped during theenactment of the Tiananmen Square with a life-size battle tank for Earth Song; theyrelived his childhood and died a hundred deaths while MJ clung to a crazed fan crooningYouAre Not Alone. "It’s not fair," screamed Deepa Sinha, a hysterical fan."I would kill to be in his arms." 

The ticket prices, pegged between Rs 1,500 andRs 15,000, were murderous enough. But that didn’t deter hip-swinging, hip-dressingkids from every block in the megatown shooting up last-minute official sales. As if thatwere not enough, one litre cola bottles went for a cool 100 bucks, mineral water for Rs40, chicken rolls at Rs 30. Chicken feed, apparently, for those who pinched no pennies tobe there. While wallets were stripped, some hopefuls were clearly crushed by the fact thatclothes were not. "One expected more hysteria, more madness. The crowd was wild, nodoubt, but not completely untamed," said a yup-pie. The concert did have a fewvictims—two fainting fans, a pair of broken legs and dollops of weeping women.

In away, the mood was reflective of the Mumbai of old. Michael Jackson’s destination was‘Bombay, India’; the Noble Savages thanked the promoters, leaving out thepoliticos; the Mumbai police department was much married to its job and Mumbai, minus theclamp on party time, could have gone on popping any amount of space capsules right up tothe extended 2.30 a.m. "We are light years behind this kind of thing," saysaction hero Sunil Shetty. "You only have to compare the previous acts with his toknow how far we are."

 By 11.20 pm, it was all over. Reiterating ‘I luvya’and ‘sabse pyara Hindustan’ in varying accents, MJ had gone through thegamut of his greatest albums—right from Thriller to HIStory. And then,quite unexpectedly, the floor fell and ate him up. "I wish his exit was as dramaticas his entry," grumbled veejay Jaaved Jaffrey.

Jaffrey was not the only one disappointed: Touts who thought that MJwould make easy moolah for them had to sell their tickets at a fourth of the originalprice. Somewhere else, a man simmered in preventive custody. And while for one moment intime, a moonwalking Michael was frozen in Mumbai, the Nagpur bench of the Mumbai HighCourt has ensured that all proceeds of the concert follow suit. The big bang is likely toend in a lot of whimpering. In that sense, the show has just begun.