Ten Things we didnt know about A.R.Rahman
"Mozart of Madras":
The music world's gain is the computer engineering world's loss. "I wanted to be a computer engineer when I was a kid. Electronic gadgets and technology fascinated me."
His childhood TV debut. "In 1980, when I was thirteen a kind producer who was called Rajan introduced me in a children's programme called Wonder Balloon' on national television [Doordarshan]. It seemed a big achievement in those days to see a kid playing four keyboards. Soon after the programme was aired, people started to recognise me on the street: Oh, it's that kid. We saw him on TV last Sunday.'"
Why he changed his name from Dilip Kumar to A. R. Rahman. "The truth is I never liked my name. I don't know why, but I just didn't like the sound of it. No disrespect to the great actor Dilip Kumar! But somehow my name didn't match the image I had of myself. Sometime before we started our journey on the path of Sufism, we went to an astrologer to show him my younger sister's horoscope because my mother wanted her to get married. This was around the same time when I was keen to change my name and have a new identity. The astrologer looked at me and said: "This guy is very interesting.' He suggested the names: Abdul Rahman' and Abdul Rahim' and said that either name would be good for me. I instantly loved the name Rahman'. It was a Hindu astrologer who gave me a Muslim name. Then my mother had this intuition that I should add Allarakha' [Protected by God], and I became A. R. Rahman."
His pre-Roja discography. "Very few people know that in 1987, I composed an album called Disco Disco with the (Tamil) singer/actor Malayasia Vasudevan. It had lots of other musical styles besides disco...I also recorded Deen Isai Maalai, an album of Sufi music. When I managed to build my music studio in 1989, it was the first piece of music that was recorded there. At a jingle recording, I met the (South Indian film) playback singer Malgudi Shubha and we decided to do an album together called Set Me Free. It was an English-language album. It was released in 1990, and later re-released in 1996, when it did better."
His early influences. "When I worked as a session musician, I was obviously surrounded by Indian film music. But I'd be listening on my headphones to Vangelis, John Williams or a Zulu chant. My interest in jazz began years later with Chick Corea, Dave Grusin and Herbie Hancock."
But he was never into The Beatles. "Strangely enough, I never listened to the Beatles, except for a very few songs. I was once supposed to do a commercial twenty-five years ago based on a tune by the Beatles. I think it was Girl' from Rubber Soul. Then of course there's that famous track with Ravi Shankar ["Norwegian Wood"]. Those were the only two Beatles tracks I knew. Many years later I read the lyrics of Imagine'."
And is more into operatic rock. "I liked the band Queen because I loved Freddie Mercury's voice." Later, when talking about his favourite movies, Rahman says: "I liked The Who's Tommy and Pink Floyd's The Wall."
How Freida Pinto and Sonam Kapoor helped him land some prized international projects. "It was sweet of Freida Pinto to recommend me to Julian Schnabel for Miral. I was keen to write new music for him but he insisted on using The Bombay Theme' and a track from He Ping's Warriors of Heaven and Earth." Rahman later says: "Danny (Boyle) told me later that it was Anil Kapoor and his kids who had recommended me to him. They would play him my songs and then the sound recordist Resul Pukkutty, also played my music to him."
His biggest gig. "100,000. In Kolkata," says Rahman in response to a question about his largest-ever audience.
His new spiritual guru, who he met after a low phase in the early noughties. "I was disturbed by September 11th and the Iraq war, and the way the world was getting divided. It was then that I met my new spiritual teacher who gave me a new perspective on life. By the way, he wrote the words of Khwaja Mere Khwaja' (from Jodhaa Akbar) under his pen name Kashif'.(took from -
A. R. Rahman: The Spirit of Music by Nasreen Munni Kabir, Om Books International, )
comment:
p_commentcount