hai gopal,happy new yr to you.so nice of u taking an initiative to support the foundation and also congrats to all our group members for their contribution.we are very eager to see the video taken with him,can u upload it if possible and any other intresting news when u met our \"Guru\" apart from the long [EMAIL PROTECTED] wroteDear friends,When we set out to raise funds for the A.R.Rahman Foundation as a gift for ARR\'s birthday, Ihad only planned to send him an image of the cheque by email and the physical cheque only bycourier. But when the contributions soared past anything I had hoped for, I felt it was onlyfair that it be handed over in person. And so, I set out to Chennai on Saturday morning notknowing if I would actually be able to meet him. Though by now, we have seen enough evidence ofhis simplicity I imagined being stopped by security guards even before I could let him know,all of which was completely unwarranted. Thanks to the never-say-no graciousness of ARR and Vijay\'s entreaties, I had the good fortuneof being your representative at the birthday celebrations of the person whom many of us deify.Far from being met with for a few seconds and summarily dismissed, I was treated with the sameaffection, care and love by everyone at his home and studio as were many of the keypersonalities of the industry who made their way to his abode to greet him in person. I made my way to his home with some navigational aid from Vijay to only find a bunch of busyworkers setting up the place in preparation for lunch. When I said that I had to meet ARR Sir,I was asked to wait in the first floor of the studio which is the building right in front ofhis home. I made my way there to find many people doing the same, some of them being Mr.Srinivasa Krishnan of Global Rhythms, Sridhar Subramaniam of Sony BMG, Naresh Iyer, executivesfrom WorldSpace and Saregama and producers from the Tamil industry whom I did not recognize. Icould see gifts of flowers from a host of people from the industry - Subhash Ghai, Udit andDeepa Narayan, Rajkumar Santoshi, Bharat and Kanika, Chinmayee, Radio Mirchi, Radio City weresome names that I managed to spot amidst the sea of bouquets in the studio. ARR\'s right handmen Noell James, Sivakumar, Swamidorai, Faiz and H. Sridhar were also in attendance.We were soon joined by ARR\'s mother, daughters, son, wife and sisters and others in the family.I soon realized that simplicity and humility runs through every brick and body in his home andstudio. ARR still hadn\'t turned up and his mother insisted that we must have lunch and we wereushered back into his home where ARR joined us. Soon director Shankar and family, Kathir,Krishna (of SOK), Praveenkanth made their way in. After lunch we made our back to the studio,were ARR took us to a large studio room on the 2nd floor and screened the video of Pray For MeBrother. I am still searching for words to describe the multiple exhilarating emotions thatpassed through me as I watched the video. Nothing we have heard so far in the live performancestruly captures the brilliance of the recorded song. Who else, but ARR, could have an Indianclassical harmony accompanying a rap segment?Following this, both ARR and his son Ameen, who also celebrates his birthday on the same day,cut the cake jointly. While his son wanted to cut his special \'Spiderman\' shaped cake, ARRdecided his simpler cake was more appropriate :-)Coming to the crux of my visit, it was the time after the birthday cake was distributed andeveryone was leisurely seated around the studio that I chose to hand the cheque over to ARR. Iwish I could say, \'Did we spring a surprise on ARR or what!\' But ARR instead sprang a surpriseon me! He looked visibly moved and said \'I have been telling these folks what you guys havebeen doing.\' I went, \"Huh?\" And his response was, \'I was on the group last night and saw allthese messages about a collection drive. You guys are increasing my responsibilities now\'. Iquickly assured him that he could count on our support in anything that he wanted to do. hethen handed the cheque over to his mother and introduced me to the rest of the people there. He then asked, \'Don\'t you want a picture?\'. I joked, \'I would like you to say a few words orelse all the folks would think I made off with the money\'. He laughed and agreed. I told him Icould wait till the studio was a little quieter. He said fine and went on to have a privateconversation with Shankar and then moved away to supervise some dubbing work for Guru that wasunderway at the studio.Before he left, I mustered the courage to ask him if there was any way I could get another lookat Pray For Me Brother, to which his reaction was, \'Of course, why even ask?\' and asked Abdulfrom the studio to screen it for me in one of the smaller rooms. I was waiting around the studio for a while when a Jaya TV crew trudged in for a sound bite.Soon thereafter he came down and shot with them. Then he turned to me and asked, \'Can we shootnow?\' And thus was marked another momentous occasion in the history of this fan community.I don\'t think I can ever thank all of you out there enough for having given me the privilege ofundergoing this experience. I sincerely hope and pray that each one of us would find anopportunity to have a similar experience. I was overwhelmed when so many of you who I havenever known or met come forward so confidently and generously to transfer what were no meansums of money. All thanks to the magic of this one man whom we love and respect.Thanks,Gopal.
