Jingle-Jangle Morning Free of cultural colours, Rahman's music rings to global ears
SADANAND MENON ON A.R. RAHMAN | E-MAIL | ONE PAGE FORMAT | FEEDBACK: SEND | Comparisons are odious. But in south Indiaand in Chennai at leastyou cant duck the over 15-year-long debate on the comparative genius of A.R. Rahman and his musical senior by twenty-three years, Ilaiyaraaja. Rahmans double Oscar haul might have been a seamless moment of Indian triumph at Kodak Theatre, but in his native Chennai, it reopened the old debate. If Rahman is Mozart to his followers, Ilaiyaraaja is Bach to his. The connection between the two goes back a long way. In the early 1970s, as Ilaiyaraaja was trying to find a toehold in Kollywood, working with hit music directors like M.S. Viswanathan, Salil Choudhury, G.K. Venkatesh and such, he was simultaneously trying to compose his own music. The instruments he hired for this were from another south Indian composer, R.K. Shekhar, who happened to be Rahmans father. Shekhar passed away shortly thereafter, but the family continued to hire out instruments. By the early 1980s, Ilaiyaraaja had become the stuff of legend, having already rewritten the rules of music composition in south Indian films with his dramatic debut in Annakkili (1976). As a good turn to the family that had helped him on the road to fame, he absorbed the barely 15-year-old Rahman as a keyboard player in his orchestra. For almost 10 years, Rahman continued to perform for Ilaiyaraaja, before Mani Ratnam handed him the baton for Roja (1992). And the rest, as they say, is history. The hotly debated issue in the south is whether Rahman would have realised any of his potential but for the wide door that had already been pushed open for himmusically by the pioneering work of Ilaiyaraaja. Interestingly, both are proficient in western classical harmonies and string arrangements. Both have graduated from the Trinity College of Music, London, though Ilaiyaraaja bagged a gold medal there. For classical Indian music, both were students of Dhanraj Master in Chennai. Both have awesome proficiency on the piano, keyboard and synthesizer. On top of it, both are versatile vocalists, with a distinctly nasal tinge. Ilaiyaraajas over 30-year-long career has seen him compose over 4,000 songs in six languages, with a dynamic yoking of south Indian folk tunes to western orchestration, which brought him three national awards. Earlier Oscar entries from India like Anjali (1990) and Hey Ram (2000) boasted of his music score. Amazingly, he has sung over 400 songs himself. Rahman has been in the field for roughly half the time of Ilaiyaraaja. He has won four national awards and now holds on to a Golden Globe, a piece of metal from BAFTA and the two Oscar statuettes. While the similarities between the two are significant, it is their differences that should interest us. Ilaiyaraajas music creates itself around and inhabits culturally identifiable frames, whether classical, semi-classical or folk. His compositions are raga-based and even in western classical-inspired numbers, he acknowledges the sanctity of its original structures. Where he makes a departure is in the polyphonic interludes. A typical example would be his amazing foot-tapper, Rakkamma, Kaiyye Thattu... (Thalapathi, 1991), in which he moves with panache from a swiftly orchestrated popular folk tune to a serene, quiet solo classical with a deft, magical interlude of hummed bars. Rahman, on the other hand, is a cleverer sound organiser and it is his artistry with the synthesizer that is the hallmark of his music. In fact, Rahman is perhaps the finest tuner of short jingles that we have, and his early career was built up composing advertisement jingles for coffee, sports shoes and such. This also included, for example, the catchy signature tune for Asianet, the first private regional language TV channel in India. Listening to these, one can construct a fair map of Rahmans musical method. Most of his compositions are, in fact, a stringing together of discrete jingles joined together by counterpoints and contrapuntal bridges. A serious examination of his music will reveal the carryover of the seductive values of his lineage in advertising. It is devoid of cultural markers, unlike in Ilaiyaraajas work. This, now, becomes his strength as it finds ready resonance in the globalised entertainment industry, which is constantly on the hunt for sounds without shadows. It has to be said that serious musical work belongs to Ilaiyaraaja. Rahmans forte is packaged marketing of catchy jingles. Of course, one hums along. http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20090309&fname=Cover+Story&sid=6
