Impressions
“MJ, You Made It Large”
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you’ll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination
But all the while you hear the creature creeping up behind
You’re out of time…
Dead is the voice who gave sound to music, dead the man who united the universe. Broken the twigs that sheltered the cries of humanity. Because only he could thrill you more than any ghost would dare to try. He was Michael Jackson, the man who brought the dead to life! He was Michael Jackson who soared high,
so high that now he is beyond reach, beyond vision, beyond everything that we are familiar to.
A man who taught music how to practice vision, Michael Jackson was himself the most powerful musician, singer and a global sensation of about four decades. And to pay a tribute to this man, to this cult called MJ, Indian musicians gave out their trademark Bollywood jingle, mixing it with the sweet ballad that the “King of Pop” had been so famous of composing. Produced by Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan’s RedChillies Entertainment, the team comprised of youth icons and musiciansVishal-Shekhar, singers Shreya Ghosal, K.K, Shaan and Senior Shankar Mahadevan alongwith the Indian Michael Jackson Prabhu Deva whose moves were choreographed by Remo. The album has been directed by Samar Khan.
Nobody, according to Shreya, came forward to pay really such a musical tribute to the artist and hence the endeavour was appreciated almost immediately by the participating celebrities. The song, composed by the duo and lyricised by Vishal himself, has, according to Shekhar, “soul” in it and is at the same time groovy, something, which Samar Khan recalls, with pride and moist eyes, was MJ’s style as well, “His songs had a certain amount of sadness” and hence the bollywood song ” should tug” our hearts as well. He added, “MJ’s life and death have made an indelible impression on my life and suffice it to say that I had to be part of that history.”
Perhaps, in sync with the Thriller song lines as quoted above, the ‘elegy’ begins with:
Sunaa sunaa jag sara
Sunaa Sunaa tere bina
Na hoga kahin
Aisa Kahin
For my non-Indian readers, I shall translate it as “Lonely the world/ Lonely without you/ Never was one/ Never will be another. “In fact the chorus chants as K.K. sings: Never never be another. Almost every singer was apprehensive and a little pricky about the singing because this is to be recognised as India’s tribute to MJ. But the subtlety of the music and the meaningful heartfelt lyrics, according to K.K. allowed himself to relax and he enjoyed the song.
When asked whether individual singing mattered, Shaan refuted with his charismatic smile and said, “It was about being a part of the whole picture.” Reportedly, none of the stars has charged any money for appearing in the video which also includes the likes of SRK, Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma
Perhaps it was the aura of Michael Jackson on the stage that worked like an enchanting spell cast on his fans or perhaps it is the love that every heart participating shared, but they and we can free chant with our stars:
We live in his world
We live in his time
He was the sound of our music in our lives
I just can’t help quoting few lines from Michael Jackson’s lovely song Dear Michael which seem all of a sudden so close to the heart:
Dear Michael
You’ll probably never get this letter
Michael, I wrote you a hundred times before
Knowing how I feel
I’ll write a hundred more
Few more lines..
and then
Michael, I love you
I held the tears back long as I can
(Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh)
I’m sealing my feelings in this envelope
(Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh)
‘Cause I wanna be more than just your number one fan
India Gears Up For Space
The success of the ambitious Chandrayan-I project has actually stimulated the quest for unraveling the encrypted lunar mysteries that have for such a long time enthralled humans. Although the mission was terminated earlier than expected, the data so far collected is enough to let India gaze down from Cloud Nine. 
It was in reality NASA’s probe and one of the eleven payloads on board Chandrayan-I, Moon Mineralogy Mapper, that actually captured the images of water (wavelengths generated by the particles).
Whatever that be, it is a giant step towards demystifying our own moon and perhaps we are inching towards establishing our ambitious lunar space platforms that have been so gladly captured on silver screens worldwide.
The proud Chandrayan-I project director, Mylswamy Annadurai, when asked to express his viewpoint, said that it was a phenomenal success and that “the baby has done its job by helping us find water in the moon.” Perhaps, “baby” reminds you too, as it does to me, of the atom bomb. which was also code-named similarly. I remember the line well “We were reaching into the unknown and we did not know what might come of it.” Indeed, it has been so. Only this time, it is for the better future.
When India reached its 56th Independence, August 15 2003, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced, “Our country is now ready to fly high in the field of science. I am pleased to announce that India will send her own spacecraft to the moon by 2008. It is being named Chandrayaan-1″. In Sanskrit, “Chandrayaan” means “Moon Craft“. 
I remember reading a story in my childhood about life on Moon. Well, back then, I had dreamt of doing the same. So, can this giant step be that magnanimous? M.S. Chidananda of National Aeronautics Limited remarks that if it is true, then, it is a big step towards “understanding the universe” and that the finding “reaffirms the maturity of the Indian space programme.” Is is huge because it has so far been considered a remote possibility. Yes, with gravity 1/6th that of earth and minus atmosphere, moon could only aid humans transforming into werewolves perhaps. But things took a different turn, this time generating from the Indian soil!
Let us at this time, recollect all that we have had to do with the lunar history-
- Year 1959 – Luna 2 lands on Moon and returns with snaps of the lunar edge
- Year 1966- Soviet Luna 9 lands
- year 1967 – United States bombards moon with 4 landings and 3 orbiter missions
- Year 1968 – First manned Apollo 8 launched
- Year 1969 – Apollo 11 carries Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, who walk on moon for the first time in the history of lunar explorations.
- Year1994 – United States launches Clementine that records most of surface & geographical data.
- Year 1998 – NASA gears up in quest for ice. Finds none
- Year 2008 – India’s ambitious project Chandrayaan-I launched
- Year 2009 – Water found on Moon!
Coming back to the present scenario, let us now talk about the actual findings of NASA’s M3 . Images suggest that the polar regions of Moon are capped with water molecules and till about 10 degrees both south and north, ice is spread . I read in Times that where sunlight has not reached, that is some polar crates on extreme areas, frozen water is present (temp : 240 degrees Celsius). Scientists have long speculated this!
This naturally brings us to question the logic behind such formation of ice on a surface devoid of atmosphere like Earth. Well, hypothetical theories are doing the rounds that include comets and meteorites bombarding the moon (happened some 4 billion years ago). And the other one is Solar winds colliding with the Moon’s surface at 100, 000 km/s thus perhaps releasing some oxygen and hydrogen ions from the surface.
Popularity: 8%