New Delhi: It was the last day of her school exams, and 15-year-old Piya Thakkar, an ardent Michael Jackson fan, was thrilled. Her father had booked the most expensive tickets, Rs 5,000, for MJ’s live concert in Mumbai during the 1996 HIStory Tour.
Piya wanted to look her best. As her aunt, Bhawana Somaaya, shared in an Instagram post, Piya’s mother, whom she describes as “forever cynical”, said, “What is the fuss? MJ is not going to give you a glance.”
But MJ did. In a stadium packed with thousands, Piya was the “chosen one” invited on stage. For a brief moment, the King of Pop held her hand, and they danced together to ‘You Are Not Alone’. The rest is history.
The following day, Piya was the hottest news on media channels and among MJ’s fanbase in India. Everyone wanted access to her for an interview. Piya, meanwhile, didn’t bathe for a couple of days and even preserved the outfit she wore.
Now, as the release of MJ’s biopic nears, Michael, Piya’s aunt, shared that iconic moment in 1996 and the chaos that followed.
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‘I won’t bathe’
Piya was accompanied by two of her school friends to the concert. There was a crowd of at least 400 people in the front section, all standing and watching the show.
“I struggled to make my way right to the front. But there were a lot of people around, and it was getting quite suffocating,” she said in the 2009 interview. Suddenly, a man tried to pull her toward the stage.
“I thought they were trying to disperse the crowd because we were getting too close to the stage. Then he looked at me and said, ‘We are taking footage of the crowd, and you seem to be a big fan of Michael Jackson. We are going to give you the chance of a lifetime, we’re going to let you dance with him on stage.’ And they just pulled me up!” Piya recalled.
MJ was singing ‘You Are Not Alone’, when they pulled Piya onto the stage, and the two danced. Then, as MJ went down on his knees, his team came and pulled her off the stage.
“I am not going to bathe for as long as possible. And I am going to preserve my dark blue jeans, my black sleeveless top, and the white crochet tie-up till the day I die,” Piya revealed in an interview with Outlook.
She became “the fan who danced with MJ.”
“He sang, she cried, and when he knelt before her, she broke down! What followed in the coming weeks is a blur… Balasaheb Thackeray phoned to inquire if she was alright. He said MJ was concerned about whether the child was okay,” Somaya shared in the post.
Today, Piya is an engineer, the director of her company, and still an MJ devotee. Her aunt added that as a teenager, when Piya saw MJ being accused and trolled by the media, she would say: “He is not like that. They are misinterpreting him.”
“I remember watching the MJ documentary, This Is It (2009), together, and both of us were saddened that Jackson was no more. His biopic has brought back many vintage videos and stories, but the best one is our personal memory,” Somaya added in the post.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)