FOR Mr VPrakash, the King of Pop is accorded such cult status that even when his brother died, Michael Jackson was 'present' in every detail.
So when he heard of Jackson's death yesterday morning, Mr Prakash took the news personally.
Mr Prakash, 39, told The New Paper: 'It's like losing someone very close. The word 'icon' is synonymous with MJ. He's a religion in music, a person from the future living in the present.'
What makes Mr Prakash special among Jackson's legions of mourning fans?
He and his brothers dress, act and live the part. For the last 30 years, MrPrakash and his two brothers, MrMoralee and the late MrMahendran, have spent $8,000 on over 150 albums and vinyl records, and reproducing 170 Jackson costumes.
Mr Prakash said: 'We have every outfit that MJ had ever worn in his career.'
He added that other local Jackson impersonators have borrowed their costumes for shows.
Even when his youngest brother, Mr Mahendran, 32, died in a car accident in 2003, the burial and his tombstone featured links to Jackson.
After winning the Singapore Michael Jackson Look And Dance Alike contest in 1991, MrMahendran was invited to perform at Jackson events in the region. He even had his own following in Japan.
Mr Prakash won the same contest in 1995. He still freelances as a Jackson impersonator between helping out at another brother's Indian Muslim restaurant in Sembawang.
Describing his brother's uncanny resemblance to Jackson, Mr Prakash said: 'Mohn (as his family called him) had flat shoulders and was lanky. His physique was perfect for mimicking MJ. He was definitely a better impersonator than I am.'
Mr Mahendran was cremated in the King of Pop's signature black jacket and blood-red armband.
Mr Prakash said: 'People mobbed him when he was in Tokyo in 1991. We don't know if they had mistaken him for MJ or were truly his fans.'
As a testament to Mr Mahendran's fame as a Jackson impersonator, his black, marble tombstone in Jalan Bahar's Hindu cemetery has the engraving, 'Singapore Michael Jackson'.
It was specially designed by Mr Prakash to contain nearly 60 per cent of the siblings' Jackson collection of records and costumes which were buried with Mr Mahendran.
Similar signatures
Mr Prakash and Mr Mahendran's devotion to Jackson even led them to model their signatures after the pop star's.
Together with the lyrics of Jackson's Someone In The Dark (1982), Mr Mahendran's autograph has been engraved on his tombstone.
Mr Moralee, 42, also showed us his self-made Jackson badges with pictures of his idol's magazine cut-outs.
The brothers did not even think twice before spending ??75 ($180) on a CD single, Someone Put Your Hand Out (1991).
It was an exclusive track released during Jackson's Dangerous World Tour in 1991, Mr Prakash said, as he carefully removed it from its ziplock wrap.
Mr Moralee, who runs a Western grill restaurant in Sembawang, added: 'Nothing was too expensive. At that time, we only thought of the rarity of the record.'
Every album is stacked according to the year of release and no other family member is allowed to touch the merchandise.
Mr Prakash made an exception for The New Paper - he let his nephew put on one jacket and his niece, a fedora hat.
You could say Jackson brought the brothers closer. They spent hours poring over the smallest details in Jackson's music videos, pausing and rewinding tapes just to perfect the pop legend's dance moves.
Mr Prakash even spent 15 years hunting down a blue hologram material that was identical to a Jackson jacket. He finally found it in Japan in 2006.
He said: 'It was like hitting the jackpot, only better.'
