If Michael Jackson were a Tukang Nggame, he might had been a good Tukang Nggame and had been much a happier person.
Michael Jackson, who died “suddenly” on Thursday, 25 June 2009, 2.26pm local time, was known as a genious entertainer/singer. Stage performance, recordings, meet and greet the fans, cities tours, TV appearances had been part of his daily life when he was only 7 years old. From being the youngest member of the famous Jackson Five back then in the 1970’s until he himself become the King of Pop in the 1980’s. Rich and Famous became his second skin, a life that most of us had silently wished.
But Michael Jackson only wish and dream was to have a childhood he never had. He believed his early success with The Jackson 5 under his father’s domineering guidance, denied him the pleasures of childhood. And his famous Neverland Ranch, with its zoo, ferris wheel and other over-the-top amusements, video game arcade, a movie theater and a private zoo that once boasted an elephant, a camel, a lion, llamas and other animals — was designed to create the warm childhood memories and obsession he never had himself.
“It’s like stepping into Oz,” he once said of his sprawling home, named for Peter Pan’s mythical island where children never grow up. “Once you come in the gates, the outside world does not exist.”
Sadly enough, as famous and genious entertainment as he was, he never had the pleasure of being a real kid, a normal kid, a normal person. I am almost certain that if only he could be a Tukang Nggame (read: have the opportunity to have a leisure time as a kid) for a period in his life, he could had been a much happier person and a better Michael Jackson the King of Pop.
And like his brother Jermaine Jackson said in his closing remarks of Michael’s death announcement, we conveyed our lost and deep condolence words for one of the best entertainer ever :
May Allah be with you Michael, always
