The Lord Of Music: A.R. Rahman

Spot on answers, no glossy statements and humility unparalleled… A R Rahman  talks about his relationship with the Hindi film industry as Viraj Sawant listens in.

- Viraj Sawant

“As I was playing the theme in my car over and over again, at some point it hit me like a thunderbolt, I told him that I must have been out of my mind not to have liked it in the first place. He smiled and said, ‘I knew you would like it.’…” writes Ram Gopal Varma in his book, Guns & Thighs: The story of my life, referring to this music director he had assigned the job of creating the RANGEELA theme tune. It’s hardly a revelation that the music director for RANGEELA was A R Rahman, which was also his debut film and the film’s music is transcendent for any other music director. Thus started the journey of A R Rahman in the Hindi film industry.

Being the biggest music director in the country, everybody wants a piece of Rahman but Rahman chooses his projects carefully. He has a selected list of directors with whom he shares a good camaraderie and hence the music you hear is exceptionally good. It’s a matter of mutual respect, says the man they call the Mozart of Madras. “Over the years we have developed a relation over trust and understanding. It sometimes is easy to deal with new directors or else unnecessary friction is created between with new ones. At this age, I just want to stick with people whom I am comfortable with. People start expecting what A R would do with Ashutosh Gowarikar or Mani Ratnam or Shankar or Imtiaz Ali or Rakesh Mehra. I don’t have the full burden of the work. You click with the director and things happen smoothly.”