THREE weeks after the turmoil of the terror attacks, Mumbai is back in the news, not only because the Taj Mahal, the hotel devastated by the siege opened to guests in time for the Christmas and New Year revelries. Bringing honours to the city's dynamism is Slumdog Millionaire, a Hollywood film set and shot in its slums. It is a heartwarming story of an 18-year-old orphan who goes on to win US$420,000 (RM1.5 million) on India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? game show.
The film has earned numerous awards and nominations -- best picture, best director (Danny Boyle) and best screenplay (Simon Beaufoy). But the most-awarded is the music by A.R. Rahman, who has won the Satellite Award for Best Original Score, besides a nomination for the 2008 Golden Globe Awards. His score received extra momentum from the presence of Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, the dance music phenomenon aka M.I.A. Though London-born, her parents are Sri Lankan Tamils, a connection that informed and enhanced the film's score. The musical score, Jai Ho, hailing perseverance and success, could as much apply to Allah Rakha Rahman, the reigning superstar of Indian film music. The accolades the film and Rahman's compositions are gathering should logically lead to greater prominence for this soft-spoken genius from Chennai, who also dominates Bollywood, the Mumbai cinema. What next, with honours coming in thick and fast? An American Academy Award, perhaps? Rahman would be the first Indian composer to achieve this. "I don't know whether it excites me personally," says he. No stranger to international fame, he has composed music for a London West End musical, scored for a Chinese film, conducted the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and created tunes for more than 100 Indian films. His first movie album, Roja, was listed in Time magazine's "Top 10 Movie Soundtracks of All Time". He has worked with internationally renowned artistes such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Michael Jackson, Jean Michel Jarre, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Zakir Hussain, Dominic Miller, L. Shankar, David Byrne, Kadri Gopalnath, Vikku Vinayakram, Ustad Sultan Khan and Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, among many others. By 2003, he had sold more than 100 million records of his film scores and soundtracks worldwide and over 200 million cassettes, making him one of the world's top 25 all-time top-selling recording artistes. But these are admittedly old figures. According to his biography, Composer Extraordinaire: The Complete Biography of A.R. Rahman, his baptism in music happened early in life, when he would visit the studios with his composer-father. During one such visit, a top composer who saw the 4-year-old play a tune on the harmonium, covered the keys with a cloth. That made no difference. The kid replayed the tune effortlessly. Rahman was born A.S. Dileep Kumar, the second of four children born to R.K. Shekhar. How did this Hindu-to-Muslim transformation come about? According to his biography, Rahman lost his father despite all efforts to save him. Even prayers did not work. In 1988, one of his sisters fell seriously ill and numerous attempts to cure her failed. The family again tried everything from medicine to Hindu religious rituals and prayers in a church. It came in close contact with a Muslim pir -- Sheik Abdul Qadir Jeelani or Pir Qadri. Convinced that his blessings worked and saved the sister, the entire family embraced Islam. Known for his thick, long, black hair, some years back, he cut it short. "When I went for haj, I shaved off my long hair. Fortunately or unfortunately, my wife liked my new look. She insisted that I keep it. I had no alternative but to listen to my wife." She is his strength and support. For Rahman, music is not just a profession but "a spiritual experience". He will be 41 next month. At an age when many others may be just starting out, Rahman has garnered achievements that many others cannot in a lifetime. The man behind the music remains an enigma. "If a music artiste wants to blossom into a full-pledged person, it's not enough if he knows only classical music; nor is it enough if he's well-versed only in ragas and techniques. Instead, he should be a knowledgeable person interested in life and philosophy. In his personal life there should be, at least in some corner of his heart, a tinge of lingering sorrow," he says. Is he afraid of setbacks? "Disappointments? Failures? The holy book says they test you. A few years down the line you see the setback was a good thing, it stopped disaster." Essentially a Sufi, Rahman is known to visit dargahs, the Muslim mausoleums, and engage in long prayer sessions. "I need that spiritual cleansing." He sees dargahs as beyond religious conflicts. The Sufi way of love answers his need. With that gain in confidence, he has become more considerate of others. If all this reveals a man mature beyond his years, he says: "I have been with older people since I was 11. Only when I saw my photograph in the newspaper while scoring for Roja did I discover I didn't have grey hair. I was quite young!" What does music mean to him? "Many things. It's hard to define: bread and butter, peace, happiness and devotion. When you are working on a piece and it turns out to be good, its like a moment of magic." He remains modest despite success. "I'm inspired any time I watch a good musician playing. When I'm programming my music on my own, I always think of some great drummer or some great bass guitarist. When I'm playing on the keyboards, I think of how beautifully another musician plays the instrument. And that inspires me to play." Rahman lists among his musical favourites Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and the Carpenters, and among film composers Naushad, S.D. and R.D. Burman, and in Tamil K.V. Mahadevan and Vishwanathan-Ramamoorthy. As the young and old swing to his hits, it can be safely said that the current era will be considered to have been greatly influenced by the "Rahman School of Music". http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/Columns/2433805/Article/index_html -- regards, Vithur
