A. R. Rahman

Kamini Mathai

Description

A.R.Rahman is an Indian film composer, record producer, musician and singer. His film scoring career began in the early 1990s. He has won twenty five Filmfare Awards, four National Film Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, two Grammys and two Academy Awards. Working in India's various film industries, international cinema and theatre, by 2003, Rahman, in a career spanning over a decade, has sol...d more than 100 million records of his film scores and soundtracks worldwide, and sold over 200 million cassettes, making him one of the world's all-time top selling recording artists. Time Magazine has referred to him as the "Mozart of Madras" and several Tamil commentators have coined him the nickname Isai Puyal

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 18 juin 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9788184758238
• Langue: English

Extrait

Kamini Mathai
A.R. Rahman
The Musical Storm
Contents
Dedication
Oscars
Dileep
Roja
Breaking the Rules
The First Award
Bollywood Beginnings
Opening Doors
Under the Spotlight
Faith
The Wait
At Work
At Home
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Author s Note
Discography
Copyright Page
For my husband Philip Mathan son Adiv brother Anith parents Dilip and Gita Mathai and grandparents Easo and Leelamani John, PJ and Molly Mathai
Oscars

On the morning of 22 February 2009, in his hotel room in Los Angeles, A.R. Rahman walked around like a zombie. He had just finished with one lot of rehearsals for the two-minute performance he was to put up for Oscar night, a medley of the Academy Award nominees for Best Song. And he had two nominations in the same category. This morning too he knew there would be more rehearsals. So there was just no time to think about actually winning an award.
On the night of 22 February, at the 81st Annual Academy Awards, the world watched as Indian composer A.R. Rahman walked up on stage to collect his Oscar for Best Original Score.
Minutes later, they watched as the composer tapped his feet to the rhythm he had created and sang the two songs from the movie Slumdog Millionaire that had propelled him to the Awards Night- O sayya and Jai ho . Two songs that were being bought, copied, uploaded and downloaded in every corner of the world, songs with which the whole world seemed to be in tune ever since the movie hit the box office. A.R. Rahman looked confident, calm and composed as he sang his two numbers. Moments after the song ended and the applause died down, Rahman, who hadn t even left the stage yet, was called on again to collect his second statuette of the evening-this time for Best Song.
He hadn t even had time to feel elated at the first Oscar of the night that he had received. And now, he was holding two.
To those who did not know him, he was just another composer accepting awards and entertaining the crowd with the songs to which they had just been introduced. It was fun, exhilarating, a moment of happiness.
But those who really knew him weren t moved by the music. To them it was the moment that was moving. The outer world was looking at a singer under the spotlight, dressed impeccably, entertaining them. The inner circle noticed that for a large part of the performance, he had his eyes closed, and only they knew why. To them, it was a moment of hope.
The outer world heard two acceptance speeches-one where he quoted a dialogue from a Hindi movie, Mere paas maa hai , which meant that his mother was by his side, and another in Tamil, Ella pughazhum irraivanukke , which translates roughly as all glory to God . The inner circle knew the significance of those two quotes for they encompass the two most important aspects of his life-God and his mother. The first, he believes, has made him who he is; the second brought him to where he is.
To the world, the Oscar win was just a moment in history that will now be a faint memory. But A.R. Rahman will always remember that moment for it was part of the journey-not the end-undertaken by a boy born in a nondescript house, who never spoke, and hardly ever smiled; who lost his father and his faith at the age of nine; who had to work day and night to support his family; who had to drop out of school and give up some of his dreams along the way; a boy who once believed he was a failure, but who later learnt to use his insecurities to spur him to great heights.
At 2.30 a.m. on the morning of 26 February, when A.R. Rahman returned to his house in Chennai, his two Oscars in hand, it seemed as if half the city was awake. They greeted him at the airport with drums and music. He shouted Jai ho to them. The posse followed him home, where the trees were covered with lights; the streets were lined with firecrackers that were burst the moment his car was seen in the distance. A makeshift stage was set up outside his gate, where a live orchestra of drums was playing to the hundreds gathered there to greet the man from their street, their city, their country, who had shown them that anything was possible. When Rahman arrived with his mother, wife and sister, the mobile phones and cameras began clicking and flashing as the three were whisked into their home. The crowd did not leave, they refused to do so until Rahman returned to them with his Oscars.
Inside, Rahman was greeted by the students of his School of Music. They fell at his feet, one, two and three at a time, leaving him bewildered as to what to do. People older than him were also trying to touch his feet, seeking his blessings. But you could see he was uncomfortable. On the one hand, he was enjoying the adulation, but on the other, he did not want anyone bowing to him as it was against his faith. But they continued, touching his feet and seeking his blessings. He would just tell them politely, No no, please!
You could sense the change in A.R. Rahman after he won the Oscar. He was suddenly aware that he was now in the public eye more than ever. He had gone international. And he had to behave in a befitting manner. He was suddenly aware that his every move, thought, word and action would be noted. His PROs and assistants flocked around him, talking about press meets and interviews that they were going to organize. Classy, please make sure it is classy, was Rahman s instruction to them. Where are you holding the meet? Just set it up in a classy way. We need to make it classy.
Even when his students surrounded him for a group photo and were nudging and pushing each other to make sure they were in the frame, he said to them, Look, let s be classy about this, okay? Show that we have some class.
At the press meet that was organized at a hotel near his house, when he entered and the photographers went berserk, a visibly upset Rahman, finding that his attempts to calm them down were not working, looked straight at them and said in Tamil, Please calm down. What can I tell people when they ask what went on here? If they see this, how will it look?
For the first time, the press was seeing an assertive Rahman-not the usually meek and reclusive composer they were used to bulldozing.
At the press conference, when he was asked what the Oscar win meant to him, he said it meant hope, that it had opened doors for people from India. He hoped it would be an inspiration.
From rags to riches, from scrap to success, from ordinary to extraordinary, A.R. Rahman is the right story to be known, read, written, to be studied and finally to be followed. That s the first thing that Subhash Ghai, the renowned Bollywood director, said to me when I asked him to tell me a little about A.R. Rahman for the biography I was writing.
The first thing A.R. Rahman said to me when I told him about the biography was that he wasn t ready. I ve always wanted my music to be famous, not me. He said he felt he was like a boat, sailing towards a destination, the horizon still a long way off.
Perhaps they are both right.
Dileep

It s ironic that the man who now plays to audiences in Broadway lives down one of the narrowest lanes in Kodambakkam in Chennai, the fourth largest metro in the country. Kodambakkam is the area where a large percentage of the city s film fraternity-producers, directors, musicians and technicians-live, and this is the place that lends the K to Kollywood. *
Fourth Street, Subbraya Nagar, Kodambakkam. This lane is home to Allah Rakha Rahman, the country s international composer. It is from here that the man-whom India loves to call the Mozart of the East-composes some of the country s most hummed tunes. It is from this little street that albums, which have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, are created. This is the street that produces music that is listened to in every corner of the country and now across the world.
Once you re on this street, it s very easy to find Rahman s house. Everyone, from the old man carrying his groceries home to the tea shop owner, can point you to it.
Fourth Street is not a boulevard, it s just an ordinary street, with regular people drawing kolams outside their house, praying at the local temple, dogs barking, the occasional cow straying through. There is nothing spectacular about the locality. You certainly wouldn t imagine there s a millionaire musician living in the middle of it.
The only clue to the fact that there is a so-called important person living on this street is the line of parked cars outside house number five. And the tall gates and high walls that fortify the building.
Since 1988, when Rahman moved into this house, the entire area started looking up. Rahman and his family have bought up most of the buildings on the street as well as the ones on the street behind for their houses, recording studio and school. The story of the street s economy pre-and post-Rahman is evident everywhere, but most in the story of a hotel called Brown Star at the head of the street. It used to be a run-down motel that seemed on the verge of bankruptcy, if it did not collapse first. Today, thanks to the obvious patronage of Rahman, * who would send all his upcoming singers and musicians there to stay, it has grown into a respectable hotel.
Rahman s house too has changed over the years, having expanded both vertically and horizontally. When the family-a penniless widow and her four children-first moved in, all that existed was a ground-floor home with half of it rented out to another family for the extra income. Now, the house is multi-storeyed, with a lawn, and comprises his studios and home, office and waiting rooms.
The gates to Rahman s home are never shut. No questions are asked when you enter. The guards just look up once and lazily resume whatever they were doing.
Towards one corner of the courtyard is the prayer room. There are flowers kept in it. In a corner of it incense and candles are lighted and right in the centre of this corner is a gr