Whitney my love

I wouldn't call myself her biggest fan, and I wouldn't say that like with Beyonce, I have chased her music for the good part of my life which stays in my memory; but indeed like Beyonce, Whitney Houston is one of the singers I think about when I strip all inhibitions and sing in the toilet. I think the greatest form of flattery is when someone listens to you and then models after your singing, and thus this is the greatest gift I am giving to Whitney Houston as a small, almost no-soul in her human life.

Unlike Amy Winehouse, whom I've come to love only over the years of my youth, Whitney is the voice amongst others which had led me into the life that is- my adolescence, my childhood. My parents themselves, are great lovers of her soul, her gospel, and I think, secretly, that my mom sees her in me when she pushes the mic into the creases of my toddler palms and clicks on "I Have Nothing" on our cheap karaoke set. But that is only because when you sing a Whitney Houston song, you will imagine the way she would have done it- with so much soul, so much conviction, so little effort, that you believe she'd meant to share every moment with you too. If you love her, you'd hear her song and see her.

I remember my greatest Whitney Houston moment. It was the first time I watched the video of the collaboration with Mariah Carey in "When You Believe". Before, I'd always felt more than disappointed for her downward spiral with drugs; not with her, but with her husband, with Hollywood, with life. What happened to my idol, I used to ask, is she ever going to be the Whitney Houston again, the woman who made me, made the singing I do, the music I am. Then I found that video and all weary was but replaced with sobs. I felt guilty for doubting her, for thinking that she could not rise up to her former glory after her stint, but the fact is that her glory never left. When she sang, she still had the same, if not, stronger determination to deliver her true best, and I think she made Beyonce, whom I love so much, the artiste she is now too. Above all, I heard her voice and I knew no one could touch her quality. No one, forever.

I love Whitney Houston so much, and even though Hollywood had introduced me to her and her sublimity, it had also destroyed her pristine, sane mind. If sadness on our parts would bring her the rest and peace she needed, then we shall not grieve, but give, send.



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