rahmaniyat - the beneficence

my article on downloading

2008-07-20T12:10:00.001+05:30

http://shafee.instablogs.com/entry/downloading-crime-or-revolution/

South Asian Cinema journal on Rahman

2008-07-18T23:31:00.000+05:30

2008-07-18T23:27:00.000+05:30

Rahmania: The Indian Musical Spirit, July 10, 2008

2008-07-10T22:59:00.004+05:30

ANIL SRINIVASAN
courtesy:http://madraspianist.blogspot.com/
(the article appeared in print form in Indian Express Zeitgeist on 13 July, 2008)
Iam going to gush about A R Rahman in this article. Not just because he is the most talented music director and arranger on the block but just simply because he has done us all a phenomenal service – he has proven that we can, as a nation of music-loving, music-making people, find a delicate balance. This is not merely a balancing of styles, tastes and preferences but of perspectives. He has made it possible for us to have the music of our times presented in such a well-organized, classy package. No fuss or frills, but well-conceived music delivered with aplomb. It manages the quintessential amount of lyrical classicism with absolutely edgy, grip-the-corner-of-your-seat contemporaneity. Listening to his music makes me think of yellow autos on New York streets, and skyscrapers reaching the sky in Mylapore all at once. The beauty lies in the fact that Rahman makes such zany collages seem plausible.

I am listening to the track “Kabhi Kabhi Aditi” from Jaane Tu.. on my personal stereo. It is peppy and uplifting. However, what I love about it is its ability to traverse across style and mindsets. It has a moving bass that can appeal to the younger audience, a tidily crafted melodic line that can move the more musically oriented and it has lyrics that are clean, crisply rendered and quite adorable. The overall effect, including the detailing of various nuances of Rashid Ali’s voice (who, if he is reading this, should know he has found a very loyal fan) in the repetitive alaaps in the end are precisely monitored.

I do not know if everyone agrees with this observation, but Rahman is not merely a craftsman representing our spirit. He is the spirit. This is India now, a microcosm of several styles and cultures peppered with tradition and bursting with confidence. This is the India that moves on horizontal time, each individual leading multiple lives and careers. It is the India that believes in possibilities and alternatives, and no longer rushes to linear conclusions to every decision problem. Each of these Indias find an echo in Rahman’s music score. With their juxtapositions of different styles, the mixtures of varied voices and the ever-present surprise element in each song ( a guitar riff that sounds different, a voice that sounds unique or an instrument one does not associate with a certain mood), Rahman’s music truly accompanies the rhythms of our extremely colourful modern-day reality. When Rahman attempts a remix (try “Pon Magal Vandhal” from Azhagiya Tamizh Magan), it still exceeds expectations. A classical infusion (like, “Narumugaye” from Iruvar) works equally well, and an all-out ‘dance the night away’ number (like a “Fanaa” from Yuva) proves difficult to dismiss easily.

When I saw the publicity material for Bombay Dreams near Columbus Circle in New York two years ago, my heart gave a lurch. On that unaccustomed earth, with the wind swirling the temperature down to sub zero, I still felt my face grow warm watching the Broadway crowd crowding up to get tickets to watch an Indian production. Having lived in the United States at a time that world attitude towards all things Indian gradually went through a transformation (from “poor nation with potential” to “knowledge experts and entertainment gurus”), I found Rahman’s music to be a fitting companion score to India’s zeitgeist.

In my ongoing crusade to excite more composers of original sound, and the need for Indian musicians ( classical, film, whatever) to expose themselves to as many global influences and thought processes as possible, I find myself returning to Rahman’s music as perhaps the most important development in Indian sound in a long time. India is a truly global player and its music should be elevated to the greatest heights possible. With our own, extremely evolved classical grammar and our natural curiosity to adapt and assimilate with the global community, I think that the possibilities for Indian music are as expansive as our collective imagination.

Copyright New Sunday Express

Letter Songs

2008-07-05T00:47:00.004+05:30

Kathupaattukal, or letter songs, is a genre of the Mappila songs. Mappilas are the Muslims of north Kerala. Though existent for a long time, letter songs became an important genre with the Mappila migration for livelihood to the Gulf countries. Basically, they are songs from husband to wife and vice-versa. Here are some lyrics from different letter songs, and their translations:

Here is how the letter begins:

ethrayum bahumanapetta ente priya
bharthavu vaayikkuvaan swantham bharya
ezhuthunnath enthennal ere pirishathaal
cholledunnu assalaam

Respected husband, this letter from your wife,
Says with a lot of love, greetings!

A husband writes:
Karalinte karalaaya manimuth oonariyuvan
Karanjum kond ezhuthunna kadana kathu
Ente qalbile ninathaale kurikkum kathu

This is to the notice of my dearest and most loving
This letter, written as I weep,
A note written with the blood of my heart.

Another letter from a husband:
Ettam pirishathale aattal veedararivayi
Ninte ezhuthu kitti, ente karalu potti

To the one at home, with utmost love
I received your letter and it broke my heart

Again, a letter from a husband:
Eka ilaahinte karuna kadaakshathal
Ezhuthiya kathu kitti
Ente sakhi, enthinu itharam kathu ezhuthikondu
Enne karayikkunnu?

By the grace of the One I have received your letter
My dear, why do write so and make me cry?

When the husband, who's been away for long, accuses wife of cheating, the wife writes: (oh no, this is not vulgar)
Madhuram nirachoren maamsa poovan pazham
Mattaarkkum thinnan kodukkilla orikkalum
Marikkolam ee nidhi kaakkum jnan, enkilum
Malakkalla jnanennu orkkanam ningalum

I won’t allow anyone else to eat
This sweet-filled fleshy plantain of mine
I will guard this treasure till my death
But, you should remember, I am no angel

Husband replies:
Penninte aavasyam ariyathoru bharthavu
Ponnan, avanaanu avalude thettinte kartaavu
Avasaram aanu aavasyathinte matawu
Athinidam kodukkunnavan viddhikalude netavu

The husband who knows not the woman’s need,
Idiot he is, the creator of her sins
Chance is the mother of necessity
And who gives a chance is the leader of fools

Speaking of money, from the husband:
Kollam aaru kazhinjalum
Karyangalkku mudakkundo?
Katthum draftum ethatha
Maasam etyho ozhivundo?

Panamillatha manushyannu
Naattil pullu vilayundo?
Palarude vaakkukal kettalum
Pattu museebathinu athirundo?

What is it has been six years (since I left home)
Are things not going fine?
Is there a single month
You haven’t received a letter and a D.D?

The man without money
What say does he have?
People say many things
But have they stopped any calamity?

What the wife says:
Naattukare munnil nammal valya panakkarayi
Veettilake aarumilla, ottapettu poyi

We have become rich in people’s eyes
But there is no one in our house, we are alone

The husband's reproach
You forgot the days of hardship…without money
You forgot the bountiful God?

How Rahman composes a melodious tune: interesting blog

2008-06-29T14:55:00.003+05:30

This is from:
http://rahmaniac.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/how-a-r-rahman-composes-a-tune-for-his-film/

I recommend that u read the original blog, it is so good

28 06 2008
1. Rahman gets an offer from the director , and he studies the script everything . If he likes it then he agrees else he drop down the offer
2. Then he sees the actor/actress and accordingly determines the singer.
3. Rahman asks the director to give the exact situation of the song and why it is needed. If he is satisfied he
4. Then Rahman sits and composes the song on his own and in his voice records every song.
5. Calls the singers after 12 am in the night [ Mark it only after 12 am ] and makes them hear the tunes.
6. Recording starts . He never modifies the song as per the singer but he modifies the singer as per the song .
7. Every sound in the studio is recorded even if a singer sneezes or coughs it is recorded and it is edited . If u remember in Kadhal Virus there is a song by Mano~ O Kadhale. There he coughs at one part. He had coughed it in the first day and then Rahman never got any realistic cough after that so he simply included the original cough.
8. A song recording goes upto 3-4 days . Sometimes male and female singers are recorded differently and then successfully mixed
9. After the vocal is over music starts . He gives his idea to his musicians and then the musicians suggest the background tune . 90% times Rahman doesn’t like them and then he himself gives them notes and the musician have to play them. Few songs however had tunes inspired by his musicians like his flutist Naveen and drummer Sivamani. The musicians love ARR since he gives them freedom and helps them grow their talent .
10.Later the vocal is added to music or vice versa and then comes the technical part. Every interfaces start working , every part is edited , reedited and software are used and lets not get much into it ,but by the time a song is finalized it is one month and the best version is out. Some say he uses technology, but come to his studio you will know he uses technology only to polish stuffs.
Mixing songs
He does all programming on Logic and also mix in Logic then he makes some pre mixes, like all choruses in two tracks, drums in two tracks, bass in one track if stereo then in two tracks and then he bounces all the tracks to EUPHONIX to give some analog warmth. But Rahman uses all Logic plugins FX.
Everyone is using Logic from Salim Sulaiman to Shankar Ehsaan and Loy. Logic is just like a Pen and Paper for a Poet. Rahman doesn’t need any Logic even he can use any other software cause he has music in his mind.
What is Logic?
Logic is an audio recording and mixing software. Most of Indian composers use this software. For more details check www.apple.com/logic/ . You can buy and download it if you have an Apple Mac Computer.
Rahman also uses or used Absynth. You can hear one preset from Absynth in Kannathil Muttamital title song. The flute kinda sound with a rough string sounds behind it in the intro. Most of the songs, especially in the last few years feature many synth sounds, probably from absynth, or some other softsynth. The beeps, filtered sounds etc in many songs like Yeh Rishta, Meenaxi and a couple from New, Kangalal Kaidu Sei etc can be done in Absynth. For more details check out www.native-instruments.com/
Audio SamplesHave you guys ever heard about audio samples. Well Rahman is the first person who used a lot of samples in his songs and the second person is Ranjit Barot. Ranjit used to work with Rahman. Ranjit programmed drums in Humma Humma.
And now everybody is using samples in Mumbai like Salim Sulaiman, Sandeep Sherodker, Jacky, Inderjeet Sharma, Ram Sampat & Sandeep Chowta. If you guys think that how can Sandeep Chowta make sound like A R Rahman, those are samples.
Here are some instances for Samples
1. Shabba Shabba with African voices. Those are samples not real Africans.
2. Spanish claps in Jumbalika. Samples again.
3. Chinese vocals in Latka. Its a Chinese Sample from the CD ( Spectra sonics Heart Of Asia)
4. Background beat in Latka song from Indian. Later Anu Malik and many other used the same loops in many of their songs eg: Mehbooba song from Ajnabee.
5. Killer drum beats in Rangeela songs. Drum samples from the cd (Best Service XXL 1500)and its a long list.
6. Final beats of Mukkala Muqabla sounds like Dr. Alban Africa. That is too a sample. It is not composed by Dr.Alban either. Same beats used by Sandeep Chowtha in Kambath Ishq song.
7. Main Background beats in Mangta hai kya from Rangeela.
8. Early bands like Deep Forest and some Euro techno bands used this concept a lot. Thats why title bird sound of Thillana Thillana from Muthu sounds like Deep forest songs.
There are many other samples Rahman used in many of his songs. It is not copying but just using a commercially available sample.
When Rahman was recording for “Jaage Hain” the Sound Engineers told him that lets record the song in a low mod ie Track 5 and later FDM it to a higher track but Rahman sing it singularly in track 15. It is his original however Madras Choral sound was probably modulated.
Composing Back Ground Music
He doesn’t actually sees the entire movie , he makes the director explain the entire script 100% and in every details and then asks for a demo. However the first version of BGM he gives is modified and re modified numerous time after seeing the film. The BGM for the movie Guru was modified just a month before the public release. Rang de Basanti BGM was actually purely on script. Some parts of the movie was modified as per the BGM. Remember the scene when the rebels walked into the radio station and the music that comes behind it. The scene was actually pretty different but according to the music it was modified and the modifications came in their walking style, check the scene carefully you will find their feet falling on the ground as per the music tune. Rahman composed this music for a period of two years. If he really took two years to compose the films music then see his dedication. Amazing.
Rahman’s recording and mixing
Not just Rahman, about all music composers use loops or samples which they buy from distributers like Sony or Apple. Its like instead of calling a performer like a guitarist to perform for his/her song a composer buys his recorded piece and uses it. These pieces are royalty free its like the guitarist sells it to Sony on an agreement and Sony distributes it through out the world. That is why you find same sound effects in two different songs of Rahman some times. Loops are not necessary to be only a single note. It can be chords or even a piece or a scratch.
How many of you have noticed this in Rahman songs especially those who are musicians. All his songs irrespective of the mood has a constant ‘pads’ or ’strings’ backing. The chords played with the pads and strings is also not conventional. They are the 7ths, 11ths or Diminished chords. They give the song a ‘feeling’, a ’soul’. Quite Technical
A classic example is the song “Thirupachi Arivalaa” from Taj Mahal. Check out the pads in the songs. Another is “Aye Udi Udi” from Saathiya. Remove the pads these songs become soul-less and very plain.
The only other person who uses this same method is Harris Jayaraj. And for sure he learned it from Rahman .Wonder if more music directors should do the same.
A R Rahman started learning Indian classical and Carnatic classical in 1992. Since almost all his songs are Raga based just wanted to clarify that he learned classical before or after 1992.
How does he compose a new tune. Does he play it in his piano or does he write the swaram or how does he go about conceiving a song out of nowhere and create a master piece.
Its a fact that no softwares in the world can create a tune. The people who learned music will laugh their stomachs out if someone tells them that Tere Bina or any song is a product of a software. Now what can a software do. What does Rahman do in his studio with all those softwares. Why does he always updates his software. It is very simple. Just a brief concept.
1. Rahman records a songs over a period of 10-15 days. A singer sings one song perhaps innumerable time till Rahman gives a hands up. Once that signal has been got the singer realizes that his job is done . Now rahman sits over his singing and edits the bad parts and couples all the best parts and after another day of hard work the singers work is ready. The singer never sang that song continuously but his best parts are selected and sampled .
2. Rahman then records music or what you call as BGM. After that he mixes it with the vocal part. Then suddenly he may realize that both of them don’t gel well in frequency. And then frequency division modulation takes place. Its a huge process friends which very well packs the music and vocal part.
3. Let us take an example of Shreya Ghosal. Rahman needs Shreya Ghosal to sing in track 15 ie the Highest. But Shreya can sing only till 11. So what can Rahman do. Let her sing in track 8 -9 in which she is comfortable and then simply phase modulates the vocal to appear as if she sang in track 15. This is a very costly process and risky too so Rahman has done it only 5-6 times.
So A R Rahman is a genius , not a technician. He uses softwares but doesn’t use to “produce” tunes. Instead he use them so effectively to “edit” tunes. And that is why perhaps he is the best. He uses Technology but his originality is maintained in each song.
A software has no brains. It will do what you tell it to do. So if anyone program his software to sing “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa” then yes, you are right. Software can produce tunes. And everyone is pretty sure Rahman uses custom made softwares. The bottom line is Softwares Do Not Produce Tunes.
What do u mean by a Track ?
Many people have different definitions of tracks . “Track” is not a musical keyword but it pretty software related. We divide a tune into several sound parts. Every channel has a baud rate frequency. For example if you hum a voice in a low scale u may call it as a track 1. The song “Jaage Hain” goes very high enough to be called as track 15 . Empirically track is a pitch depth value versus volume. The intersection of the graph is the resonant value. This value is what the purest and the “Virgin tune” we call. It is difficult to acheive this reasonable value due to several reasons but Rahmans studio is feature adapted to it. Almost 99% of his songs are reasonabaly valued .
We heard a lot of spectra sonics stuff in Rang de Basanti. Especially the amazing pads from spectra sonics atmosphere. He’s also been using swarplug, an Indian instrument plug in, which can be heard in water and the background score of RDB. The santoor you hear in “Chanchan” from Water is actually swar plug doing the job.
Its easy to use software but it ain’t easy to create stuff with software. Samples are an easy way out and most music directors are going the samples way because its easier and quicker.
This includes people like Salim Sulaiman sadly, they lack tunes. Himesh, lacks creativity and singers, Shankar Ehsaan Loy , these three guys are actually pretty good, Sandeep Chowta. He’s not even a music director according to criticism, more a DJ kinda fellow.
Someone like Rahman, takes the pain of creating his own samples as well apart from using purchased ones. Now thats a huge difference. This combined with the responsibility of making path breaking tunes is a big big task. Make no mistake about it.
What thus we say can be summed up thus give the same equipments, computers, keyboards, the musicians, the software, the samples etc. To any other music director in the country they still cannot match A R Rahman it takes a genius to create something extraordinary like he does.
Being the user of these sound editing softwares we can give us suggestions. The usage of sound editing softwares such as Neundo, Cubase ,Sonar and Logic is very helpful and reduces our work in the technician point of view. Though these sounds are pleasant and filling they spoil the naturalizing of the song. But Rahman’ comprehension on the editing softwares and plugins and using them in his songs and BGM is fantastic. But that in itself is his drawback. A R Rahman has one of the largest collections of samples in Asia.
Music Director vs Music Composer
“Music director” is not really a Music Composer. He is basically the guy who makes the tunes for the songs. Then he gives it to the lyricist for the lyrics. This works vice versa too. Lyrics first and then the tune. Now comes the major difference between “Music directors” and “Music Composers” like A R Rahman and Ilaiyaraaja.
The Music Director hands over the tune and lyrics to the Music Arranger who will fill in the music into the song according to his knowledge and experience. The Music Director will only direct the music as in supervising the process but does not necessarily compose the BGMs, the rhythms, the chords, bass lines etc. in the song. These are done by the Music Arranger, who will arrange for the violin sections, the brass sections, the percussions, the beats etc. according to what he knows.
Needless to say, the Music Director, more often than not, is not even proficient in playing a musical instrument. He need not be with the method mentioned above.
This is why most Music Directors sound the same movie after movie after movie. Because the tunes are different but the arrangement is the same. The Music Arranger guy is only doing his job and ending the works as per deadline. No creativity there. There is no effort to innovate.
A R Rahman though, it seems, sits and works on each piece of music in his songs. Each sound and each element of the notes are heard by him, evaluated and then entered into the song. Plus he has great musicians to bring out quality sounds.
In other words, Rahman actually designs the sound for each of his songs. To all those who scoff at use of technology in music this sound design is enhanced only because of the technology.
This sound design combined with great tunes make great masterpieces. Any surprise his songs are so good ?
A R Rahman ~ His Professionalism1. A R Rahman is perhaps the most professional musician of India. He has this habit of looking out for talented musicians and then he calls them to his studio and records and samples their stuff. And then the musician packs his bags and is off to where he/she belongs. The best part comes now, whenever Rahman will use that sample/loop in any of his songs, he makes a point that he pays that musician his royalty !! Isn’t this wonderful ?
2. One of the musicians has played the Dholak in “Taal Se Taal Mila” and here’s the story. When the musician went to Rahman’s studio for recording the Dholak he was all set as he found the rhythm not that challenging. But the real fun came now. Rahman asked him to wear Ice cream sticks tied with rubber-bands to his finger (the Chati i.e. side which produces the high pitch sound). This was indeed unique as Rahman was pretty clear on what “sound” he wanted.
Thats A R Rahman for you. The best musician India has produced after R D Burman.
Something About Music Sampling For StartersIn music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or element of a new recording. This is typically done with a sampler, which can be a piece of hardware or a computer program on a digital computer. Sampling is also possible with tape loops or with vinyl records on a phonograph.
Often “samples” consist of one part of a song, such as a break, used in another, for instance the use of the drum introduction from Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” in songs by the Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mike Oldfield and Erasure, and the guitar riffs from Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” and Tone-Loc’s “Funky Cold Medina”. Samples in this sense occur often in hip hop, as hip hop sampling developed from DJs repeating the breaks from songs and Contemporary R&B, but are becoming more common in other music as well, such as by Slipknot’s sample player Craig Jones.
Early Cases
Sampling using tape recordings goes back at least as far as 1969, when Holger Czukay used traditional Vietnamese singers on his record “Canaxis”. Czukay and his former band used samples often throughout the seventies.
One of the first major legal cases regarding sampling was with “Pump Up the Volume”. As the record reached the UK top ten, producers Stock Aitken Waterman obtained an injunction against the record due to the unauthorized use of a sample from their hit single “Roadblock”. The dispute was settled out of court, with the injunction being lifted in return for an undertaking that overseas releases would not contain the “Roadblock” sample, and the disc went on to top the UK singles chart. Ironically, the sample in question had been so distorted as to be virtually unrecognizable, and Saw didn’t realize their record had been used until they heard co-producer Dave Dorrell mention it in a radio interview.
Types of samplesOnce recorded, samples can be edited, played back, or looped i.e. played back continuously. Types of samples include:
Some facts about A R Rahman1. A R Rahman records most of the songs in the late night because he belives that is the time at which a person’s sound will be at it’s top best.
2. Rahman allows singers to sing there own versions of the song separately and chooses best among them.
3. There are more than 1000 samples available in Sony and Apple.
4. Rahman has used a ghatam loop in the Rang de Basanti background score from Apple’s loop library. The same loop been used elsewhere. But it sounded a lot better the way Rahman used it.
5. The song “Maiyya Maiyya” has a flute interlude in the beginning similar to the one in Anu Malik’s “San Sanana” song in Asoka. The flute sample in Mayya Mayya is a commercially available sample. Both the Asoka song and Mayya Mayya have been arranged and programmed by Ranjit Barot.
6. Chinna Chinna Asai was composed as a ’sad’ full song initially but later was changed to a happy song.
7. ARR first composed only the first stanza of “Tu hi Re” song for Bombay. Later Mani Ratnam shot the song and after feeling confident of the song, Rahman completed the composition.
8. Thiruda Thiruda and Duet took most time in composing followed by Box-office Flop Mangal Pandey.
9. Maiyya Maiyya was recorded in Toronto and music was added later as usual.
10. In Thiruda thiruda there are two special songs in it. One is Konchum Nilavu which is fully computer programmed. Another is Rasathi where you can’t hear a single instrument.
No matter how intensively A R Rahman uses technology, but we are always astonished how he stands unique with same softwares. Its all creativity Guys. Always wonder how he pours soul in music and creates a situation through music, a world in which we are lost.
A R Rahman is a great Sound Engineer of all the times. There are certain frequencies which sooth our brain, may be A R Rahman know which frequency level or modulation will leave soothing impact on listener’s brain. Its possible and we can achieve such frequency levels through softwares.
Now its your turn ! Still not a Rahmaniac. Better late than never

Argument in Orkut

2008-06-29T12:34:00.003+05:30

someone started this thread by alleging that "Rukmani" song from Roja is vulgar, because it has double-meanings and so it is vulgar. More members poured in to give more examples of songs that have quaked their brahmacharya. To this I replied saying that well, these things, meaning such songs and practices, are part of our culture, and also drew the example of the practice (which is even stated so vivvidly in the Booker winning Midnight's Children) of checking the conjugal bedsheet for blood stains on the next day of wedding. The moralist moderator of the A R Rahman Fan's Association group in orkut (a community I love so much, sigh!!!!) decided I have crossed the limits of decency. He deleted withoout even giving me a notice and on further enquiry on my part this victorian Vithur writes:
ur posts was very vulgar. Pls moderate your speech before ciriticisng the moderators. remember, we have a lot of female members here . No personal offense with anyone. we were to dicuss on lyrics part and not on any intricate stuff, ( which are byond the scope of any discussions ) Are we on shame ??... LOL.

I challenge him to show waht is vulgar about it. My point is clear:

"just because of the undertone of sex in songs like "rukmani", it doesnot become vulgar. All i want to say that this thread itself a big vulgar affair started by some moralist, and u censor me for saying that while u allow all the supposedly "vulgar" lyrics to be translated. No worry for female audiences then. And moderator, dont police our words for "acceptability", u needn't be the Guardian" of the female audiences,and wake from ur patriarchal assumption that men can tolerate any obscenity, and women are helpless hapless creatures to be rescued by people like u"

Please support my cause. Here is the link:

http://www.orkut.co.in/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=16502&tid=5215735660713221040&na=2&nst=35

A R Rahman Honored

2008-06-26T12:48:00.002+05:30

[Wednesday, June 25, 2008]
A. R. Rahman has been conferred a Lifetime Achievement Award for his services to Indian music by the Rotary Club of Madras on the 24th of June in Chennai. The event had a question and answer session in which a humorous A. R. Rahman spoke about his favorite music and his experiences working in movies.
Lifetime Achievement at age 40. Indeed a terrific achievement.

courtesy: http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/malayalam/gallery/events/15583.html

AR RAHMAN: THE ROLLING STONE INTERVIEW

2008-06-25T15:03:00.004+05:30

He changed the face of film music. Now he’s changing the face of his music.
JUNE 2008 - THE MOST CELEBRATED MUSICAL ADDRESS in Chennai lies beyond a partly corroded gate whose colour has so far eluded consensus. It’s purple, said the first samaritan who attempted to guide me through the maze of bylanes that is this part of Kodambakkam. The second kind soul said lavender, and a third leaned towards mauve. Ten minutes later, standing in front of this entrance of apparently indeterminate hue, I decide to go with mauve. Mauve. It feels nice to roll around the tongue. It sounds sophisticated.
This mauve runs through the most unexpected spaces in Allah Rakha Rahman’s recording studio. It’s on the borders of the doors in the waiting room, doors whose signs indicate that they open out to Studio 3 and Studio 2. (Studio 1 is invisible from where I sit.) It’s on the ceiling, on the yards of gauzy material diffusing the light from lamps overhead. It’s on the fabric of the ergonomic chair in front of the keyboard behind me, a Fender Rhodes Mark II Seventy Three Stage Piano. Perhaps Rahman will complete the theme. Perhaps it’ll be on his person when he walks in.
But Rahman enters in a maroon kurta that’s as rumpled as the hair on that boyish face. Once you’ve sold over a hundred million albums worldwide, you can apparently dispense with combs. And hearty pleasantries. The mumbled greeting almost doesn’t make it, fighting its way out through a smog of sleep.
Rahman looks as if he’s just woken up. Considering it’s fourteen minutes past six – that’s PM, for the uninitiated – he probably has, after a gruelling night of recording. As he leads the way to Studio 3, a cascade of sound crashes through the so-far-silent waiting room. An assistant emerges from behind a door, perhaps the door to the mysterious Studio 1. It closes behind him and locks out the music that has lingered just so long as to tease. So much for wanting to brag about bearing witness to an AR Rahman work-in-progress.
As he opens the door to Studio 3, it’s clear that the only recording that’s possible here is on my Dictaphone. This is just a cubbyhole. There’s a table. A couple of swivel chairs. Hardly the dizzying array of musical geegaws I imagined. Rahman picks a chair and arranges himself in a pose that a yoga instructor would describe as the lotus position with one dangling limb. The homey posture adds to the disquieting impression that the real Rahman is going to stride in any time, boot this happy pretender out and take over his seat, one imperious leg crossed over the other.
But this is the real Rahman opposite me, barreling through the conversation with fragments of sentences – phrases, really – as if he’d long ago realised that fully-articulated declarations had a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping up with his thoughts. Between these phrases, Rahman pauses a lot. He also laughs a lot. It’s a nice, open sound that makes you think he’s dropping his guard. Then the laugh dies away, and so does the presumption.
Rahman is especially guarded about revealing his feelings about that morning’s big news. The Madras High Court had dismissed the public interest litigation against him (for disrespecting the national anthem in his album Jana Gana Mana, an in-spirit follow-up to Vande Mataram). “I think, me being patriotic and all,” he begins, and instantly changes his mind. “But don’t. That’s already done.”
A microsecond of an internal struggle later, he realises he wants to talk about it after all. “I knew that it would be over. After all, the President released it. And he can’t be wrong.” That open laugh again. Then a pause, followed by a platitude. “I think it’s good that people raise questions and that they are answered in the right way.”
I wonder if this generosity towards people raising questions extends to interviewers. I may already know the answer, but Rahman, to his credit, at least makes the attempt to meet me halfway. He doesn’t mind interviews, “But only selectively. Otherwise I feel very naked. I feel I’ve given everything away, all the information away.” It sounds like a new admission, but it’s the old celebrity dilemma: you want to reach out to your adoring public, and you still want your privacy.
That’s the thing about being in the limelight: there are no shadows to hide in. And this year, especially, has been an extremely visible one for Rahman. It began with a critically-adored hit (Guru) and went on to a critic-proof blockbuster (Sivaji: The Boss) – though Rahman himself may have been overly critical about his work in the latter.
He’s usually happy with the final product he delivers, and even if there are problems, “We usually have enough time to fix things.” But after finishing Adhiradee, the song that he sang, he never liked it. “The director [Shankar] could imagine it, but I could never get the picture he had in mind. But when I saw it, I was blown. He had taken it to some other level.”
There. In his own words. The Mozart of Madras all but wolf-whistling over a Rajinikanth music video. But Rahman makes no apologies about the commercial aspect of his art. “Hit music is important for a mainstream film. It helps you get a good opening. And as an artist, I am happy when people say this is the highest selling album. I am really happy about it because we worked so hard on it – not only me, but the whole team.”
It’s hard to begrudge Rahman his little-boy delight over an album that’s far from his best, especially in light of the fate that befell some of the other, better work. “There was so much stuff in Bose, so much energy and thought. But the producers didn’t release it properly and it suffered a great deal.”
That’s a rare controversial statement – an accusation, practically. And yet, there was a silver lining, a light at the end of the tunnel, whatever you want to call it. “I went to a restaurant in San Francisco. This Iranian lady came to me and said: ‘You are AR Rahman.’ I said yes. She said: ‘Oh we love your Zikr in Bose. It’s so famous in Iran.’ I never expected that.”
Delayed recognition is not new to Rahman, for each release of his goes through a familiar two-step programme: (a) derisive dismissal, followed by (b) inevitable capitulation after multiple listens, reinforcing the urban legend that His Songs Take Time To Grow On You. Rahman, at first, gets defensive. “When we do a song, the director listens to it thousands of times, and only when everyone likes it, we go ahead.” The song goes through a filter. There’s already some kind of assurance there. “So when people react negatively, we have to wait for three weeks, because we know that the song works (or doesn’t work).”
But Rahman understands. After all, he’s been through the same cycle with that other King of Pop. “I used to wait for Michael Jackson’s albums, and the very first time, I used to say: Oh, I don’t like any of the songs.” Three days later, he’d find that a song was actually good. Then he’d watch the videos, and yet another one would become an earworm. Finally, all the songs would make it to the list. “Because so much hard work goes into an album, and when something is new, you can’t judge it. The expectations are too high.”
They still are – with each project Rahman takes on. “There is always this question: ‘How can I do this best?’ I’ve never ever thought, let me just do a fast job.” The prospect of Rahman rolling up his sleeves for a “fast job” would no doubt be sweet music to a producer’s ears, sweeter even than the songs being created. “But I have never looked at music in any other way. Whatever goes out of my studio is precious. I tell this to my staff also. It has to be so precious that substandard stuff will never go out.”
And then, a dash of practicality to temper this perfectionist streak. “Beyond that, we can’t help it.” Because there’s only so much you can do, especially while working on big, international projects like Shekhar Kapur’s Golden Age (with Scottish composer Craig Armstrong), when it’s very difficult to switch to something else. I think he means masala-movie music. And despite this focus, despite this variety, when people don’t seem to get it, it rankles. “I’m always asked why my music sounds repetitive. And I ask: ‘What sounds repetitive?’ If you have a point, prove it and I can correct my mistake.”
Perhaps being tired of being all things to all people, Rahman tries to satisfy himself now. “At first, it used to be about being faithful to the director’s vision.” Then he found that some filmmakers are not connected to the audience. And after all these years and all this experience, “I can spot something and say: ‘You can’t put a song here. It won’t work.’ And most of the time, my predictions have been right.”
Sometimes, it goes beyond predictions. Sometimes, Rahman doesn’t even take on a project, “Because people have their lens on me so much, it will kill the movie. If it’s a small movie, and you put this name on it, they go there expecting the sky.”
There’s just no stopping Rahman, now that he’s gotten started about criticism. He attacks that other accusation often levelled at him – that he works out of one of India’s most well equipped and advanced recording studios, that he’s nothing without his technology, that older composers were not such slaves to gadgetry.
“I’ve played in that era. I’ve done arrangements in that era. I used to record in mono – and if one person made a mistake, we all had to play all over again.” He thinks, for their time, they were the best, Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy and KV Mahadevan. He’s a big fan. “But they always say that old wine is better than new wine, so we should wait for this wine to become old,” he laughs.
The musician as patient vintner. It’s a rich metaphor, though one somewhat ironic – for Rahman’s is the rare instance of a fairly young wine being toasted on platforms of rare vintage, like the London stage. There was, however, a period of maturation before Bombay Dreams could be uncorked.
“Shekhar [Kapur] and I were trying to work on a musical called Tara Rum Pum Pum.” They worked for a couple of years. They finished a lot of numbers. Then Shekhar had this huge opportunity of doing Elizabeth and he had to leave. “It was frustrating, but I realised how important it was for him to become big. So I didn’t care about losing those ten numbers.”
“I think he probably felt something,” Rahman smiles, speculating that his successful international foray owed as much to his own gifts as someone else’s guilty conscience. “He met Andrew Lloyd Webber and everything happened.” That was his biggest gamble, Rahman feels, going for Bombay Dreams and leaving all his work here. “It took two to three years. But I think the gamble was good, not only for me but for Asians there – for India I would say. It raised a lot of questions about us. I would say it gave me an address.”
If the bag-and-baggage relocation left Rahman with insecurities about rivals encroaching on his turf, he dismisses the notion with a philosophical shrug. (Though, truth be told, a philosophical shrug is how Rahman dismisses pretty much everything. These are possibly the limberest shoulders in musicdom.)
“I think the competition is within myself. There’s so much you could do, but because of the time factor and other things, if you think of 100%, you deliver 30%.” So he never thinks of others as competition. At least, he tries not to. “Because I believe that my share is defined by God. And that’s what I’m getting. So even if I want to do 30 movies, I can’t because it’s not my share. Unlike earlier, when a composer was in the limelight, he used to take all the movies and even when somebody wanted to go to another person, he would say: ‘No, no, don’t go. I’ll do it for less.’ I don’t need that.”
Is he talking about… Could he be referring to… I guess we’ll never know. You don’t get to complete an interview by asking these things midway. “Anyway, it’s a great time to be a composer. We’re all enjoying extraordinary comforts. Never before have we had this kind of exposure. Even the small composers, if they do good work, they are celebrated because of the music.”
RAHMAN’S FIRST MEMORY OF MUSIC is listening to RK Sekhar’s songs. That was his father, who composed and arranged music for Malayalam films. “Apart from that, the records that he owned. Osibisa. Jim Reeves. Switched-On Bach.” He’s just picked up on something. “You’re trying to relate all this to my music now, aren’t you?” The unspoken question that hovers, however, is this: Is there anyone who wouldn’t make the connection between childhood memories of Bach being played on a Moog synthesiser and the instant-recall image of Rahman smiling, a keyboard beside him?
Rahman realises this. He continues. “Those days, we never had good records. There was this shop in Bangalore where they would record onto cassettes. All musicians, whenever we’d go to Bangalore, we’d take a day off, go to the shop and record music. Chick Corea and Vangelis and Dave Grusin.” History and Science and Math, inevitably, came a distant second. Just how distant, you ask? “If you take a class of fifty, there was no rank for me.”
“But,” he quickly explains – perhaps realising that this admission will ensure that slacking students everywhere are going to worship at the shrine of AR Rahman – “it was because I used to work side by side.” (Rahman’s father passed away early, leaving his son the responsibility of caring for the family.) “Setting up stuff, playing for Wonder Balloon on TV – all this meant taking leave.”
And yet, Rahman never dreamed of becoming a musician. There was no dressing up in rock-star duds and playing in front of a mirror over the screams of millions of imaginary fans. “I could never see myself performing. Even today, when I have an interview, when my wife switches the TV on, I’ve trained my daughter to switch it off.”
The irony of such self-effacement in a career that routinely requires him to perform on stage, in front of thousands, doesn’t escape him. “But I don’t like to watch myself,” he persists. “I think it’s something in the imagination… That is something else and what I see is something else.”
But he doesn’t mind hearing himself sing. “That’s okay.” A rapid dot-connecting exercise results in a hazy theory: maybe he’s just more into sound than visuals. “My main interest was electronics, hardware, that kind of stuff. That’s because we had so much stuff. I was fascinated with it.” Yes. He’s definitely more into sound than visuals.
“The most important person for us at the time was the hardware engineer.” This guy called Raghavan. If something went wrong, they’d go stand at his doorstep. “He was the only person who could fix everything.” Including a temperamental rhythm box – a contraption with a row of buttons titled Rock and Jazz and such, which made up the percussion section of Rahman’s one-man shows.
“I’d be playing, and suddenly only noise would come out of it.” A quick call to Raghavan would ensure that Rahman never missed a beat. “He was a hardworking guy. Always used to work at nights.” But if those nocturnal visits are responsible for Rahman’s now-renowned practice, of composing during hours where the only other people at work are at call-centres servicing American clients, he isn’t telling. “That’s because of… other things.”
Raghavan was eventually nudged out by Roger Waters, when Rahman’s classmates roped him into a band for inter-school cultural competitions. “These guys introduced me to rock and Deep Purple and Pink Floyd. Before that, I was playing mainly the compositions of my master Nityanandam. And film songs.” Some five years after the high-school headbanging came Roots, the band Rahman formed with musicians like Sivamani and John Anthony and Jojo and Raja. “After we went through this big journey of rock and pop, we thought we’d do our own thing. I got my sequencing gear. We composed pieces.”
Not songs. Pieces. “It was more experimental, actually, but also Indian. It was my influences at that time.” Rahman hesitates to use the dreaded F-word to describe this music. “But yes. That was the height of fusion – around 1987-88, when L Shankar asked us to back his band, Epidemics.”
They had just a couple of performances, one in Bangalore, one in Chennai. But this experience helped in terms of exposure to a new way of thinking, a new way of preparation for a concert, and about how serious it was to be a professional. “It led us to good things.” But what led Shankar to Rahman, that’s still not clear. “He claims he was my neighbour in Mylapore, when I was very young.”
Roots was only half as successful as Epidemics, winding up with a grand total of one performance. “At IIT-Madras… no, Anna University, I guess.” There was no time for an encore, once Rahman gave up the stage for the studios. “I became an arranger. I used to work in Bangalore a lot, for [the composer] Vijay Anand.”
Steady work. Steady money. A sandbox filled with big-studio technology. To the ears of a great many struggling musicians, the situation would have translated to a Puccini aria. Rahman, however, heard only discordant notes. “It was frustrating. It was only film music. To liberate yourself from this and go to another space was impossible. A normal person would never relate to what we wanted to play.”
Even if there’s a bit of a whine there – the whine of a kid picking at a full plate of food when there are millions starving in Ethiopia – it’s hard not to empathise. We are, after all, talking about a time when jobless thirtysomethings mooching off retired parents with a foot in the grave were accorded more respect than an I-want-to-change-the-world musician. Rahman himself felt that by not giving in to peer pressure, by not becoming a CA or an engineer, “I’ve missed out on something great. I thought I was going to suffer in the future.” So much for crystal gazing.
That insecurity could be why Rahman surrounded himself with musician friends: a group of get-no-respects. “I just have two or three guys,” he says, of friends who opted for more conventional careers. “They’re all doing well. One is in Microsoft.” But if there was any longing about trading the synthesiser for a keyboard, it was only Rahman’s. No one at home cared.
“My mother had this killer instinct that I should become a musician,” he laughs. Rahman still harboured hopes of scraping through a correspondence course, “But I could never do it.” He feels that’s why he’s slow in a lot of things. “When I write emails, I manage just one word or two words.” Clearly, even artists acknowledged as genius-in-their-lifetime are entitled to petulance over the inadequacy of their electronic communication.
The bad rap that musicians got – the Scarlet M, if you will – kept eating away at Rahman. “I wanted to set another example, to show that not all musicians are… like that,” he says, explaining away “that” as booze-swilling, babe-hounding bohemians. “When I was playing (the keyboard) for Ilayaraja, I realised he was not that kind of guy. He used to be a saint, sitting there and creating great music. So the image of a musician at the time, in inverted commas, was completely different from what I saw. That was a great thing.”
Greater things were in store. “When I was playing with Ilayaraja, I met this amazing keyboard player, Viji Manuel.” Manuel composed jingles, and he asked Rahman to assist him and programme for him. Then a filmmaker from Kerala, Isaac Thomas, gave Rahman a jingle to compose. “That was the first one, I think, for a colour lab.” It takes a little imagining, that the go-to guy for the soundtrack of every single prestige production today was once toiling away at background scores that could be zapped away with an unceremonious flick of the remote control – but as they say, the journey of a thousand miles often begins with a single 30-second ad.
That ad was for Allwyn Trendy watches. Rajiv Menon, who made the commercial, recalls that he first heard of Rahman – then known as Dilip, before his conversion to Islam – during an earlier assignment for Harvest rice bran oil. “We wanted to show a plate splitting, and we wanted a particular kind of sound – a breaking and splitting apart sound.” Someone told him about this whiz kid with sound effects technology. The rest was the beginning of history. The plate broke and split apart as no plate had broken and split apart in advertising.
Less destructive – but no less influential in furthering the early-Rahman legend – was the commercial for Leo Coffee, made by Sharada and Trilok of Trish Productions. They started out in 1987 and were asked to do a public service film for drug abuse in their very first year of operation.
“Someone suggested a young, new musician called Dilip,” says Sharada. “We fixed up the recording, and in came this tiny guy accompanied by loads of equipment, who talked nonstop and knew more tech specs on sound than the recordist.” Rahman delivered a track that was outstanding and the film won them many awards. “After that, we worked together on over a hundred ads.”
“Mani Ratnam is my cousin and would often ask me who did a particular track for an ad. Trilok and I would keep telling him to check out Dilip sometime.” Once, after a recording, they were heading out to see the first copy of [Mani Ratnam’s] Thalapathi, and Dilip asked if he could come too. He met Mani that evening. Mani called Sharada the next day to ask if he could listen to Dilip’s work, and Trilok took him across to the studio. “Mani called Dilip a day later,” – Rahman remembers it as “two weeks later” – “and offered him Roja.” There it is. The story behind the creation of a new musical universe – in one small paragraph.
Roja came out in 1992 and – despite Rahman’s assertion that “they didn’t like it instantly” – the album’s trajectory on the music charts was not unlike that of a Diwali rocket escaping its cloudy bottle. That, however, may not be the most appropriate of analogies, given the circumstances of the time.
“Around then, after my studio was done, my way of thinking, my philosophy – everything changed. I got spiritually influenced by Sufism. It was not ‘I am going to do this piece’ or ‘I am going to compose’ anymore. I nullified my ego and was waiting for spiritual inspiration.” Sharada adds, “Almost towards the end of composing for Roja, he told us he would like his name to be AR Rahman in the titles.”
Rahman has, at various times, discussed this issue of conversion to another religion, stressing on the death of his father and the miraculous recovery of a sister from a serious illness. But at this moment, he doesn’t want to talk about it. “It happened. I am here,” is all he’ll allow, a sliver of minimalistic poetry couching a larger philosophy.
He is, however, far more forthcoming about the tenet of Tauheed that he was attracted to. “It says that God is One. The ultimate love, you give to God. And because of that love, you have to love other people. Because everybody is His creation.” This road to virtue, inevitably, necessitated a full stop to vice. “I was probably drinking at the time. Beer and all that stuff. All that stopped.”
THERE WAS SOMETHING ELSE AT WORK during Roja. This was, finally, a shot at freedom from anonymity, a passport to recognition. “I realised that it was not worth it doing commercials alone. You’re working so hard, but in front of the people, you’re nothing.” The movies didn’t exactly seem a cure for this existential malaise, because Rahman hated the films of the time. The only person he admired was Mani Ratnam. “And when I got the chance of working with him, it was, again, divine intervention. Once I got to know him as a person, I felt there was something special happening here.”
Rahman had to leave all his other work to get into what he calls the mind-frame of his new project. “I had to leave my film playing. I had to leave commercials. It was not easy because I used to get paid quite a lot of money at that time.” And Roja didn’t pay much. “The money which I got for six months’ work was what I used to earn in a day.” Still, a few freewheeling conversations with his inner voice convinced Rahman that he had to do this.
“Something inside told me that without sacrifices, nothing can come. You can’t have everything.” On the other hand, you can be left with nothing. That’s what it seemed like when Rahman handed in his tunes to the director. “He never reacts instantly. He just organically waits till something goes into him.” And two weeks later, when Rahman didn’t hear from Mani Ratnam, he thought, “Okay, that’s the end of it.” It was now going to be jingles all the way. And then – when he had lost all hope – he was told that his tunes had made the cut.
Fifteen years after Roja, Rahman finds that it hasn’t become any easier. “At that time, that sound was just mine. Now people are sharing that sound. So to do something is not just about a different sound anymore.” Also, during Roja, it was just stereo. “Now we need to think about 5.1, DTS, what comes out of this speaker, what comes out of that speaker – and still hold the song together.”
Hence the layering. Rahman’s compositions, over the years, have gotten more complex; where there were once various individual strands, these are now knotted into a dense skein. “That’s also because I have the option to work abroad. I can get the musicians I want. Like for Jaage hain from Bose, we used almost 130 people – an orchestra, a choir and all that.”
Rahman’s uniquely improvisatory way of creating music – layer by layer, block by block, as opposed to writing out the entire composition and then going about arranging it – is the stuff of myth now. But the way Rahman puts it, it’s the stuff of miracles. “Every time I sit for music, I try to destroy my ego. At the same time, I have a sense of pride, that if I do something, it has to be good. It’s unnerving. It’s a paradox. It humbles you – and you wait for the intervention of God. You say: Give me a tune please. I need to make this work.”
This channel of communication, unsurprisingly, works in mysterious ways. “Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up, take a tape recorder and record a groove. Or just sitting somewhere, I get an idea.” Paathshala (from Rang De Basanti) was like that. The bursts of sound at the beginning came first. “CHAN… cha-cha-CHAN,” he sings. Then he goes to the studio and fine-tunes it.
Then again, maybe not. “Sometimes, you know it’s not happening, even if you sit there for hours. And you give up and say: when it happens, it happens.” This process can, of course, play havoc with film schedules. (Rumours have it that Rahman’s delays are behind Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar missing its release date this Id.) But Rahman says, “Well, they all know about my schedules. It’s not a bank job. We are all working towards something exciting. You make a movie over two years. So schedules can definitely be shifted around.”
Parents aren’t supposed to have favourites among their offspring, but Rahman’s eyes positively light up when he talks about Rang De Basanti. “Before Rang De Basanti, I was trying to balance my movies – from things like Bose or Swades to more commercial movies.” But all the commercial movies he signed got delayed, so what people heard was only Bose. And that was when Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra came in with yet another story involving freedom fighters. “I thought: I’ve already done Bose and The Legend of Bhagat Singh. So how do we make this different?”
By brainstorming a lot. “We made an effort to treat every situation differently. Like Sarfaroshi ki tamanna – it’s supposed to be the most ferocious anthem, and we did the opposite. We said: ‘Let’s make it sensuous. Let’s get Aamir Khan to do it.’ It was big energy, but an implosion rather than an explosion.” And when Madhavan dies, they tried to put another emotion parallel to that – a lullaby, so that people are not pushed to the edge.
“We said: ‘Every song should be a hit song.’ I know we say that for everything, but in this I think we were favoured by God.” The only apprehension that Rahman had was that Mehra never intended to shoot any of the songs in lip-sync, which would limit their association with a particular star during the television promos. “But the film was a great sensation, and all songs were accepted.”
So the process, apparently, is this: the tunes are a divine gift, which are then shaped by human hands. And ears. “When you are working with a team, they know exactly what to spot. What they want. So I don’t take the trouble of selecting the stuff. I just do the templates.” And if it so happens that the best template comes while servicing the worst director, then amen. So be it.
“I remember some of the more successful composers of the past, they would do twenty movies and they would just concentrate on the movies that they knew were going to work. For me, I say: ‘I sat with this guy and worked on this film. This is probably the most amazing tune this year, but God has given this tune for this guy.’ I should give it to him, even though I know he is going to destroy it for sure.” That’s his philosophy: never discriminate in art.
“Two or three years back, I was failing in my thinking. I used to think: ‘This is what Tamil audiences deserve. This is what Hindi audiences deserve.’ I became complacent because of the lack of time.” He was working mostly in the UK, on Bombay Dreams, and he was doing movies more for friendship than passion. This wasn’t the case earlier, when he composed the groundbreaking soundtracks whose tremors are felt to this day – Thiruda Thiruda and Bombay and Roja.
“When I did those, it used to be: Let’s push things to the extreme. Suddenly I wanted to do a theme like a Western classical piece. The Bombay theme. And I did it. Mani Ratnam did not expect it at all.” And now, that happy scenario is back. “A great piece of music is a great piece of music. Who cares if it’s Tamil or Hindi?”
But Rahman does care about a few other things, like being denied the music publishing rights, which is why he refused to compose for Farah Khan’s upcoming only-an-asteroid-hitting-the-earth-can-prevent-it-from-becoming-a-blockbuster, Om Shanti Om. “I was not speaking for myself alone, because I don’t care about money.”
And as if realising the incongruity of this statement from someone who reportedly gets paid in crores, Rahman corrects himself. “I care about money. But I don’t care about it, in another way. It was just that I needed to make a statement. I feel heartbroken when extraordinary artists go on the streets, begging. I’ve seen that happen. They’ve done their part, they’ve given stuff from their soul and they need to get what they deserve.”
And now some company has these rights – rights that should be shared with the musicians, the music composer, the lyricist. “The publishing rights are what give you that money. You never know what kind of media are going to come up and where music is going to be used. Ten years ago, who knew about ring tones? So why should musicians lose out? And anyway, it’s only a small window. When you’ve given five flops, nobody is going to come to you.”
This isn’t simply a matter of making hay during an equatorial noon. Rahman is almost as passionate about other issues that deprive musicians of their rightful due – issues like piracy. “I feel, if you can afford something, why not buy it? Okay, you downloaded it and listened to it. Make it a point then to go and buy the CD – because you’re supporting the artist and you’re supporting families who are involved in it.”
Read more at http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2008/06/07/ar-rahman-the-rolling-stone-interview/#comments

Copyright ©2008 Rolling Stone

2008-06-24T19:27:00.006+05:30

Song: Kunu Kune
Film: Yodha
Lyricist: Bichu Thirumala
Music: A.R.Rahman
Singer: Yesudas/Sujatha

Kunu kune cheru kuru nirakal
chuvadidum kavilukalil (on the cheeks dotted with dancing dimples)
Nanu nane nakha padamezhuthum
suma shara viralukalil (on the fingers etching wet pictures with the fingernails)

Oru poo viriyum oru poo kozhiyum (a flower blooms, the other fades)
kuliravidozhuki varum (chillness flowing in)
Manassum manassum madhuram nukarum
asulabha sukha nimisham (this rare silky moment when the minds taste honey)
Iniyoru lahari tharu (give me a high)
izhukiya sruthi pakaru (lend me the rhythm)
Hima giri shigarikale kadalil kulirara panithu tharu (oh mountain lofts, build me a cool room in the sea)

Mukhavum neeyum oodum paavum moodum aa.. (you hid the beauty of your face)
Vazhiyorathe neela poove naanam oh.. (oh blue flower, your coyness!!!)
Iruvaalan poonkiliye (oh double-tailed bird!)
ithiriku swapnamitta mizhiyil (in the dream dabbed eyes of yours)
Inaye thedum durisam (the yearning for your mate)
muthamittu vachathenthinansiham
Shilppamen munnil shilppiyen pinnil shilapa shala nenjakangalil (the sculpture before, the sculptor behind, the sculting workshop in the hearts)
(kunu kune)

Sasilekhe nee pulki pulki cherum um… (oh crescent, you accept and bloom!)
Sasi kaantha kallaayi poyen maanasam um… (and my heart too, now a stone of moonlike lustre)
Thulasi theertham kiniyum (the holy water dripping)
rithu kondu konde vacha shikaram
Unarum Nepal nagaram (the wakening Nepal town)
kondu thannu ninneyinnu pakaram (has given you in exchange)
Swargamee rangam swanthamee bandam Sundaram janma sangamam (the scene is heaven, the bond made, beautiful this meeting of lives)
(kunu kune)

courtesy for thr malayalam lyrics: http://www.shyju.com/index.php?showtopic=28

Caste and Popular Music

2008-05-14T12:42:00.000+05:30

Contemporary Dalit movement posited caste as a critical category. While the historical intersection of many events, like the Ambedkar centenary celebrations, the Mandal Commisiion report, sustained movements like Dalit Panthers, etc have awakened social and literary studies from their class-blindness, it may be a confession on my part that not much has been worked upon on the relation between caste and popular music. "Class-blindnesss" here has a two-pronged meaning. It refers to the blindness of the disciplines to see beyond the margins and therefore to represent only a smaller percentage of the population and then pretend to be talking for the nation; at the same time it also means the pre-occupation of the disciplines with the category of class, failing to see the caste character of the Indian society.

An important impact of the Dalit movement is that it was a condition for the intelligibility of interrogation of the specific nature of the nation we are talking about. Questions of who gets represented are important because on the one hand it helps to assert the distinctive nature of the aesthetic practices that was hitherto subsumed under the "noble" culture; on the other hand it also makes visible of what was to date avoided. Recent studies have suggested the process of subsumption and transformations that came about with the change in technologies and audiences. The Deshpande-Srivastava debate that locates the image of Lata Mangeshkar as the Nightingale of India points to the marginalisation of the then-existing musical practices that came about with the introduction of amplifying devices like microphone.[1] Similarly Zoe C. Sherinian explores the negotiation of political ideas and the critique of musical practice as an inherent part of sharing music and creating an intersubjective musical understanding in the study of Dalit liberation theology in Tamil folk music.[2] In the rest of this paper, I give an impressionistic view of how popular music can be interrogated on the axis of caste.

Firstly, caste as a criterion of interrogation can bring to light what formerly went under the broad category of folk music. Thus the question of the property of the art forms can have a political impact of asserting the diversity and richness that Dalit aesthetics have contributed to the mainstream culture. This type of interrogation can start at the level of the instruments used.[3]

Another mode of inquiry is to delineate the subjective influences that went into the style of a music director. The controversy regarding the assertion of Ilaiyaraja-as-a-Dalit having to do with his music, with "deep understanding of so many different styles of music allowed him to create syncretic pieces of music combining very different musical idioms in unified, coherent musical statements"[4]is one such. A different angle of studying popular music is to inquire the ethnography of consumption. Studies in sociology have depicted the construction of tastes and the negotiations that people of different strata have with the aesthetic practices of their everyday life. Important in this regard is Bourdieu's works, which takes the sociology to the subject and thus makes visible the audience of tastes.[5]

A study of caste and popular music thus sharpens the insight into the various modes of consumption and production of music, and renders visible the elisions of popular culture.

[1] Deshpande, Ashwini. 2004. 'Lata Mangeshkar: the Singer and the Voice', EPW, November 27.
Subramian, Lakshmi. 2005. 'The Voice in Colonial and Post-Colonial India', EPW, April 14
Srivastava, Sanjeev. 2004. 'Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans', EPW, May 15

[2]Sherinian, Zoe C. "Re-presenting Dalit Feminist Politics through Dialogical Musical Ethnography". Women and Music.Vol.9
[3] an example for a Dalit instrument is mridangam, used widely in mainstream south Indian film music. Hide of cow being the integral part of this instrument, it is deemed impure. The translation of Sharankumar Limbale's Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Culture: History, Controversies and Considerations has as its cover photograph a Dalit in the process of making a mridangam, and becomes symbolic of the distinct Dalit aesthetics, as well as its marginalization by the uppercastes, and even from mainstream visibility.
[4] Greene, P.D. 1997. Film music: Southern area. Pp. 542-546 in B. Nettl, R.M. Stone, J. Porter and T. Rice (eds.). The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume V: South Asia — The Indian Subcontinent. New York: Garland Pub. (p. 544)
[5] Important among these is Distinction. A point to note here is that Bourdieu's field is a capitalist society ordered in terms of class, and require readjustments in the Indian context. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. London: Routledge. 1984.

paralleled (a story in the making)

2008-05-13T09:43:00.000+05:30

The day the water dried up in their well Anas dreamt of Moses. Not that he was peculiarly inclined to. Moses was requesting his way to the dream. It was his father in the beginning, he remember, but it was Moses in the end. The landscape…well, it should be somewhere near the quarry in their village. There were rocks. Father was on his way to their house, but also to a gathering, but also to meet an uncle who has brought muslin lungis and aluminium foil from gulf…and there was mother too, and Anas? He was there too, he could see all this happening, and he could see himself, his rotund body wrapped inside the polyster floral designed shirt and dark brown pants he folds both the ends, the waist folded to stop it falling off, the ends to stop it dragging; his short fat hands, the bruise on his elbow intact and his piteous sweaty face, all were there, and he could see it, and he was both outside and inside.

Rahman Asianet Interview

2008-05-04T13:07:00.003+05:30

May 3, 2008
Voice Over: The music Rahman has been composing ever since Roja has captured the hearts of millions across the world.

“Do you pick up music from your sorroundings, and may be subconsciously perhaps?
Subconsciously I like to see what is happening in the area, like I was very pretty surprised when I went to Jeddah, and find the seal of Lebanon and Beirut, making a different kind of music. And Dubai ofcourse is another big creative place where I have been to. I have not followed that much because I have been involved in something else like Lord of the Rings and Elizabeth and my own projects which were K M Music. But I think it evolved in it, like Arabic music. There is a quality production at the same time maintaining the tradition of the Makkah..
“Do you obviously try to bring in the new element, let’s say, like if it’s Arabic or Sufi that now that affects you, do you try to subconsciously bring them to the songs that you do? Or is it really technical…
I…it’s that it’s mostly dependent on the Director. If something is good I tell them that you wanna hear this and he hears it and if they like it they embrace it, if they don’t then I keep it as it.
Since you mentioned Lord of the Rings, you just completed album with that Warriors of Heaven and Earth, the Chinese movie… I mean you are really going international. Is it something that you really aspired for? What does it mean to you, this international reputation?
…For me I think music is…when I do music for a Tamil movie it is as respectful as when I do it for a Hollywood film. I don’t think “oh it is a Tamil movie, let me do it all shoddy…give more finished work…(blurring )…hopefully I treat them all equally, whether it’s American audience or Indian audience. And that’s other one of the reasons why it transcends the audience.
When you work with the western orchestra, what is one similarity or one difference that you find compared to the Indian team with which you work?
I…here, I think once you work with musicians you know, you just have to say, we have to begin something and they will end that for you, they can take it further. But when you work with musicians you don’t know, especially cast and orchestra, you need to write everything, you need to show them all, so you can’t have it in mind and think that you can pull it off. You need to…there’s a full process of orchestrating and copying down the stuff to the orchestra…
So it is more challenging?
It’s not challenging, it’s just the step towards that. I can’t now wake up in the afternoon and say “call the orchestra, let me do a song.” I can do that in Chennai. But I can’t do that else. I need to have an orchestra booked three months in advance, I want to finish the scoring and then on the day of the recording they play. So it can’t be done overnight. Everybody is preoccupied.
People complain that Indian musicians lack the dedication that classical musicians feel the rest have. What do you think about it?
I don’t agree the generalization of dedicated/non-dedicated people. I think those who are dedicated are dedicated in a different way. You can’t compare with them, they are unique in their own way, and they are unique in their own way. Because the infrastructure is built in such a way that it is organized, in the West. But here due to various different thing...lack of unity…may be it suffered a bit. But now hopefully things will get better.
Will K M Music Conservatory be one step towards that?
True music conservatory is definitely a step towards that because we have it all in us and it just needs that one step of organizing, or, helping to give infrastructure where they can play any kind of music and they can, in one step, jump to go to international arena.
And focusing on bringing more Western song music to Indian music through this institution?
No, it’s not that why it works actually. It’s acquiring more perception, and…generating more jobs, generating more passion, generating more shows and…so many other things. I think once it happen I’ll also be more convinced than at this stage…
You also have a school of musical tradition as part of the conservatory. So are you actually encouraging people to learn the instruments that are fairly old? Considering that you have been accused of bringing in technology to music, you know, is it sort of repentance for that?
It is not a repentance. It is the way of life now. Because if somebody knows only one way, one little thing and they don’t know the other thing, they cannot complain that this came in, like the video came and the radio starved (smiles). Let there be both and let them have a choice. If given an opportunity I’d have learned, that time, I would have gone to conservatory and all. But we all came up the hard way, so I think if they provided with the right sort of education, we can see much more music. We are only accusing “oh music is not like that those days”, but nobody has ever thought of giving that to the people to educate them in the right way. Well, if somebody wants to get educated, the rich could go to Europe or America and learn, the poor could go nowhere.
Right
So..
So is it a paying back to the society today?
Also, it is also a selfish reason.
What is the selfish reason?
Selfish reason is that I’ll be listening to the orchestra for five years and I’d be having an orchestra of our own, in five years or three years, or ten years, but the seed had to be sown, and it had to be done now.
How do you respond to that allegation you are clinging on, you are depending too much on technology? Do you feel…
I don’t think it is an allegation, it’s just…sometimes ignorance, sometimes lack of understanding of what they say. If you say, now that you are carrying a camera, (pointing at the camera), if I say you should use a machine old camera…you are using the technology to capture me. So that is not a…that’s a progress. So certain things are progress, certain things are… If I make good music with whatever it is, then it is… it’s a progress for me. If I deteriorate from that, if I’m making noise, so you are going to technology and making something irritating which I shouldn’t like
But doesn’t that happen now too often in modern music? Don’t you feel, see, hear…
There is, there’s good and there’s bad. And we have to filter it, I think. That happens in every era I think. Mediocrity is in every era. That shortcut to creativity always happens.

Voice Over: Other than music, Rahman is involved in many humanitarian actions too. Rahman founded the A R Rahman Foundation with the aim of wiping out poverty from the face of the earth. Rahman was appointed as the Global Ambassador of Stop TB Partnership of WHO in April 2004. Albums like Pray For Me Brother, Indian Ocean etc depict Rahman’s interest in humanitarian endeavours.
Is mediocrity what irritates you the most?
Definitely, all of us. And that is the reason for K M Music Conservatory. I feel, if we build up musicians, we muster them for melody and harmony, and they will never do that. Because they can never allow their conscience to go against what they have learnt. They’d give that, you know, beautiful format. They would take it further what good people have left.
You have once said that, you know, what Indian music now lacks is perhaps is a powerful, overwhelming male voice. Do you still stick to that?
(eh)…well, there was a time when people used to love this kara kara(rough) voice, which is not there now. The last I‘dthink was Jesudas having that, probably Jagjit Singh and all..
But then you hardly use him these days, is it like you are giving a chance to newcomers?
No. What I have been doing is, I am doing very experimental stuff. I have never done the very straight stuff. In my understanding I am a rebel in my own way. I’d like do all the movies. I’d say “Give me all the movies, I’ll do all of them”. Then I’m responsible for that. I want to do things which excite me, which take me more, excite me, and take me to another spectrum of the music which has not been explored.
That makes you a rebel with a cause. What would be your cause?
(Laughing)…My cause is to give people something interesting. Because when you have something interesting…I want something interesting to listen to, I want to make something interesting to listen to. …of course…
Obviously there is something more in it. Anyone..a lot of people make music, which is interesting…I am sure you have something more spiritual, perhaps, than that.
Well, I think, definitely. Without any blessing I would be nothing. I believe that making peace out of chaos, making
What personal was perhaps the experience doing Pray For Me Brother? Was it a personal…Did it haunt you personally?
Pray For Me Brother…it did haunt me, because that is the only one thing which we always say to people, when friends meet they say oh brother I’m so... pray for me, or I’d say to somebody, so that, whatever it is connotating, it is the only thing that we exchange. So I thought that is a good outline to have as a song. It’s not about giving money, it’s about wishing someone good.
It was thought provoking. I think that music must have helped in some way. Do you believe that these things actually make a difference?
At least the people have noticed, people have in a corner of their heart it’s laid a seat. And lots have thought twice before spending money for unnecessary reason. This one could have done for that. So I just want that to be an inspiration. Not a solution. So in that way I think it did.
Do you go back to your pre-ghazal (that’s what it sounded to me)days, when you are struggling, you are working. Do you do that ever?
I don’t. (both laughs). Not that I have to, I think of the future always. Because the past sometimes is bad. It only brings the venom and brings the bad memories. And that’s what is happening in the whole country, perhaps, the whole world. “You have done this to me long back, let me do it again now”. It’s just pointless. Good experience…definitely I’m grateful and have my gratitude towards them, but bad things I keep forgetting and thank you very much.
Sorry, but I have to take you to the past and considering that you have spend some part of your life in Kerala. What memories of Kerala you have
Kerala, I think…very laid back people, very honest…well…I…my first recording…actually Kerala was in my house. When I used to come out of my house I used to see musicians, producers, and directors, all waiting for my father, assistants and singers…so the whole of Kerala was in Tamil Nadu. You know, the whole industry was there. And it was like a family, a family of Malayalam and Telugu and Kannada men. My father was involved in so many different, he was assistant to so many different music composers. He was probably like a nucleus for everyone, and that’s a reason he died, he go overworked. The lesson I learnt from him was not to overwork and worn out yourselves, because you need something for yourself.
Is it possible for you to follow that?
Ya, I tried it, and that is why I did one movie in six days
You keep visiting Kerala, on and off regularly on personal trip. Did you go to your father’s place?
I did go to Kerala recently. I went for Muthu, I went for Padayappa , for an ad for Worldspace…
But you have never done a movie in Malayalam after Yodha. Has it been deliberate?
It’s no deliberate. Just that I need something exciting. There were some movies which were very close to execution, but then it fell out, because of various reasons.
Can I give a suggestion perhaps. Considering that you bring in a lot of different world sounds, from different parts of the world, how about doing a song only with Kerala musical instruments?
Good Idea. In fact one of the bands gave me all the percussion instruments after an award I gave. They were so moved they gave me all the instruments they played, still I have that, I don’t know what to do with it.
Why don’t you consider doing something, perhaps for Asianet?
Asianet…
For your own reason…but something…
Well, there will be something, you never know. When it’ll come.
Where does it, when does the spark come in, when do you realize that I am going to work on this and not on that?
I don’t know, because there are some albums which I have done, Dakshinamoorthy Swami has composed it…(some part missing)
Do you think you are perhaps handicapped if you weren’t too well versed in Carnatic or Hindustani music?
No I don’t think so, because if I was fully into one music, I wouldn’t have embraced the other kind of music, but the idea of going something, having the object of look on musical landscapes, the landscapes are different. There are extraordinary geniuses in Carnatic music, and Hindustani and every…But I felt that because my understanding is more from a distant point of view I can get away with certain kinds of things which I can’t if I had known too much of nuances.
Sometimes… you picked up (some singers name) randomly pull out of audience and make them stars. What is it that make you feel that this star material, this is the guy who will make it work?
I never do that. They have it in them and that’s what happens. I can never make a person star. What I can do is I can just try them out and if they have it in them, it shows, adrenalin comes in, the life comes out, and nobody can halt that.
Where does the role of a composer begin, and a singer begin? Where is that dichotomy? Is there a dichotomy at all? Or who needs to be credited for a song’s success?
I think we are all instruments, we are all acting upon what we have to do. So nobody is in control, God is in control. And when Minmini just came and sang the track, so God wanted that to happen.
Are you treating it very spiritually this way?
I am in a way, actually, because things are put together, and because you believe in good things, I feel that things come together.. even if you want, sometimes you want a singer for a song for a concert and they don’t come for ages and you call another singer, he sings the song and it becomes much better, and this happens everytime. And then you think that may be he was the person to sing this song.
But what is one song you would want to give in birth for?
I don’t know.
Something which is very close to your heart?
I cannot …each person has one, no two people will say the same song. They are all beautiful. So I give respect to them ,and nothing to comment.

Thank you very much.

part 1http://youtube.com/watch?v=IpxH961k018
part 2http://youtube.com/watch?v=G5OspKHmYYg
part3http://youtube.com/watch?v=GElvy39Fctc
part4http://youtube.com/watch?v=mDN-x3xWQSY

SCORE Apr. 2008

2008-04-30T13:27:00.003+05:30

Read the April 2008 Vol.1 Issue #2 of Score, the magazine for Music, Art and More:

http://www.bluetoad.com/subscriptionfee.php?magazineid=1389_4

Rahman interview to Radio City Chennai

2008-04-29T21:51:00.002+05:30

ARR Interview to Radio City - TRANSCRIPT
The programme was ARR Interview to RadioCity 91.1 , Chennai.
The date April 28th, 2008, program: Breakfast with Chennai.
The Transcript is below

Q :- Rahman always means technology. Actually, he has brought a lot of technical aspects into Music. Do you feel that technology is a must in current day Music ?

ARR :- I think, nowadays a Musician cannot be a musician alone. He needs to be know technology. Nowadays, people owing a type writer have started owing a computer. So its a necessity. Whetever we type goes into the computer, and not by its own. So in music also, there are automatic generating Software, but melody cannot be done with that. I think its a small step. Just like driving a pig; a car. What you need is to take care that you dictate it, and not get dictated by it. If we do music out of the limitation that exists from th software, we would also become limited. So we need to change stuff, whatever it takes us to.

Q :- if we listen to a line from a music, we are able to grasp the fact that its an A.R. Rahman Music. There is an unique speciality about it. Is this a planned effort ?

ARR :-No. I used to keep playing in Film Industry in the beginning. At that time, I wanted to do an album. I had something in my mind , that I should do something non- filmy, out of the film arena. The Filmy stuff started boring me. So, when I returned back to the filmy music, instead of doing it seperately, I thought of using it in film music. So those influences came into Filmy Music.

Q :- Rahman. Sometimes, when we turn the chapters of life, it astonishes us, and that too, your life has been a miracle altogether. Today, the ful world knows A.R. Rahman. There are a lot of people, who have been driven mad by your music. Did you ever think, your life would have been this much succesful. ??

ARR :- NO. ( Straight away replies ) . Basically what happened was, I went into a spiritual phase of life, where I met this Murshad, who blessed our family. He said, that " You are your family are going to see something amazing". At that time, I was thinking he was just telling lies ( ARR uses very local tamil word " Peela" for lies. ). But with due respect, when things changed, we started believing. he said something, and its happening. Its a blessing from him. After that, it went step by step. I always take the situation little by little. That makes life more easy. Then , after Bombay Dreams, I could have made up by mind that I am not going to do any more regional Films, as I have been recognised in the West. But, I do respect all the fans from the South. or North, Indians all through. , who supportd my music. Thats one of the reasons to do the stuff. I did do some silly pictures in between, just to keep the thing going.

Q :- ( A personal Question ) Right from the time, you came to the Film Industry, till now, you have always stayed young. Hows that possible. ?

ARR :- ha ha ha . I think most of the musicians look young. Because they cannot have two things in their mind. It is Spiritual and Music. hatred and jealousy. If you have all that and worries, you become old. You just have to take all that off, and live life at that moment. Think Good,

Q :- Rahman , I should not ask any Music Director this question, but still. Which song is very close to your heart ?.

ARR :- Only when you listen to it back. Some days back, I was listening to the song , " Sowkiyamaa " from Sangamam. Then I realised, thats its a good song. Because, we forget the song, after finishing it. Otherwise, you cant go. If you take a luggage with you alwaysm you cant go anywhere, and you would not know whats ahead of you. Whats the new sound. So to do all that, you need to forget the stuff. and go, Keep watching.

Q :- Your Thai Manne Vanakkam was a scintillating song. Today, you are famous world wide. Whever you go, your roots are in Chennai. So, what does Chennai mean to you ?

ARR :- Its where I was born. So, there is an attachment. Chennai is a part of me, and my music also. So, you cant deny that. We invested so much of money for the studio here. , which gives more the reason to stay here. All the kids love here.

Q :- Everyone says, " A.R. Rahman is down to earth; down to earth". We also know that well. We realised that, when you came to our studios, as we were tensed that there was a delay in the lift. But you were very cool. How did this character come to you ?

ARR :- Down to earth Down to earth..... I have been in earth only since beginning........We need to be absorbing. Its like a camera. Just take the good things, and leave the bad things. So that is a part of I think, learning. and even in music, its like that. You have to wait for good music to come to you. Wait for that particular state of mind. Need patiennce for everything. So thats very important.

Q :- You have been part of a great movement of taking Indian Music to International Arena. whats our Future plan regarding this ?

ARR :- I think , to develop something very unique. Nowadays we are always switched on and aware about technology, youngness , freshness and everything. That will be very intersting to see a unique piece of music. Music becoming the leader for the full world. we could do that, if we all put our minds together.

Q :- Whats your message to Radio City Listeners ?

ARR :- Thank you all Radio City Listeners. For being a part of my music, and also part of my life so far. And I hope you continue to that so.

Thanks to Narayan and Aravind AM for giving the Radio Links. Thanx to Vithur who posted it on Orkut A R Rahman Fans community

on K M music

2008-04-24T08:21:00.000+05:30

A R Rahman press meet on K M Conserevatory and Orchestra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuTCymoBxPE

2008-04-23T23:15:00.001+05:30

Report on Rahman's performance in U A E. Lists the songs, http://www.mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=broadcast&broadcastid=75272

ARR donates Rs 25 lacs to old musicians

2008-04-23T22:57:00.001+05:30

Nakheeran Issue Dated April 23, 2008

Saregama Padha nee - Sattamilladha Udhavi ( A help rendered without publicity)

A.R. Rahman has done a service without making any publicity. Film cirlces are buzzing about this help done by Rahman. There is a society formed amongst the Tamil Film Cinema circle. It is a very old society. When it was started, all musicians from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, andhra were members of it. At one stage, it got disintegrated, and people from other states other than Tamilnadu got seperated. And so, only musicians from Tamil Nadu stayed in the end.

There were people who had Music Knowledge and experience, but as people became old, the society couldnt function as before, and slowly stopped functioning. All the musicians also became debt ridden.

Amongst those musicians, 100 people above 50 years were selected, Rahman had given them Rs 25,000 each. By doing this, Rahman has not only supported the musicians, but also music. When asked some musicians, they replied , " Without His permission, we cannot give a public interview on this, which would be like tarnshing the service done by Rahman". Thus saying they stopped giving the interview.
When contaced the Chennai Light Musicians Leader Raghuraj chakravarthy, he said , " Senior Musicians, that too people who have dedicated themselves for music have been suffering in life. Knowing this, and being unable to bear this pain, He has supported them, which is a very proud effort. We could have arranged a very big function for this. But, if we would have done like that, the very purpose of he doing this would not have been served. He has done this without any propaganda which is a very big deed".

" Rahman felt very bad, when he heard about about these musicians, who have been hit badly in their lives. He wanted to help them in some way or the other. So, he decided to initially assist 100 people, ( people who are old enough), and thus putting faith on his close associate he dediced the list of people to be helped. He drew a cheque of Rs 25,000 /- on each and every person out of that 100 list. He called the people concerned and distributed to them. He had done this so that the monies will reach the right people, at the right time, with the right amount. He had clearly told them, not to publicise this, and had even requested about this

from : A R Rahman Fans orkut community
discussion title : ARR donates Rs 25 lacs to old musicians

Ayisha (contd)

2008-04-23T16:29:00.000+05:30

The festival of Puthiangadi was over. The elephants were back to the landowners, the green and red flags with inscriptions on divinity on them, after having fulfilled their mission of proclaiming the dynastic greatness of its bearers, will now be folded and secure in the wedges of wooden blocks that roofed the aristocratic houses. Ayisha, however, was refusing to go home. The sight of the hawkers packing the remains did not subdue her resolve. She wants a balloon, an air filled balloon that goes up up to the seventh sky.

“Why do you want that now? Haven’t you got all that?”, her father Abdu was clear enough as he pointed to the ensemble of wooden dolls, glass bangles, a polka dotted faded red skirt and two pieces of aaraam number sweets, all that an eleven year old girl should be happy with.

“But I want that.” There is not much you can do when an eleven year old is unyielding.

“But it will fly away in a minute”

“I want to see it fly away”

“want to see it fly away. What else did you see till now?”

Silence.

No answer.

Push. Won’t move.

Scold. Pretend to not hear.

Abdu took her in his arm. Ayisha was violent with her legs, but her father’s hands, though delicate even by the standards of those who made their living by writing, as he did, was strong enough to control her vehemence. For the last twenty one years the labour he knew confined to chronicling the ownership of land - …amsham…desam…taluk … geography spun relations around it, land changed hands, sons killed father, neighbor fought over one metre roads, roads turned plantain groves overnight, wells partitioned into halves turned septic tanks in one half and the other half fed malice for generations to come… Twenty one years of writing down lives, of ending dynasties and changing borders, of draining waters and unforeseen landslides. This vocation required a resolve to be untiring, to be detached and credulous, to depict the movement of time as well as be its guardian. To record the times you had to be outside it. With seven children, six male and the youngest female, Abdu didn’t show much of the years that lay behind him. His sun burnt face featured loose skin below small and wide eyes, his thick glasses rested on his high cheekbones but his jetty hair hid those features under a blanket of paused time.

Ayisha was familiar of her father’s persistence in his decisions, and she had inherited it too. But there are moments you let go, like this eleven year old knew too well. It was already dark and they had to cross the plains, trace the bridges - made by laying a single bamboo - over numerous canals and they also had to be on the look out for swamps and snakes. Ayisha often wondered why they still had to fear snakes though they never failed to contribute to the sarpapooja held to appease the snakes in the nearby sacred mangroves. Resigning to the situation, Ayisha decided to postpone for a further occasion her demand for the balloon and instead make allies with her father for the journey ahead. She made her way to his shoulders from his tight grip, and surveyed the sorroundings.

“there, there” she extended her hands to beyond what she could express.

Far away, perched on an electric post on the mountain, she saw iblees, the devil, one of the henchmen of satan. It had the body of a vulture, the head of a cretin, and had beaks instead of lips, long and curving upwards. Electric posts were then a novelty, and her uncle, Maimu , had told her some days earlier that these long poles with metal wires were devices of Satan in his bid to outmaneuver the mighty Azraeel, the angel in charge for lightning, thunder and rain. They are instruments of the infidels, they are defying the Mightiest of all powers, they are the imposters of the final days.

“Who asked you to look there? Look down”

“ppa, call them, call the warriors of heaven” May be this was her sought-after occasion to witness the three hundred and thirteen mighty warriors riding on their swift and elegant white luminous horses as they battle the forces of evil of this world.

“shut up Ayisha, there‘s nothing there. Your mother, oh that woman! That woman has taught you all her folks’ ignorant ways.”

“I can see it”.

“Shut up, will you?”

Ayisha was desperate. She could see it. Her father’s obstinacy won’t wish it away. She tried to remember the prayers. Blank. The ninety nine names of God. Blank. The song of birth. Blank. The opening chapter… In the name of Allah, Praise be to him…

All the stories of iblees flashed through her, all the incidents of madness, of the wailing ponds of the noon, of the laughing kids who were turned into stones, of the chained man of their place whom she have only heard of, of the demon who stretched his legs from one river to the other and rained shit on all the houses between…

And then they heard the muezzin calling out for prayer. It was dark, the last prayer of the day. The voice of an old man crackling through the demonic plains. Away, a small dot of brightness testified to the known world. Ayisha saw the iblees fainting away, first its toes, then its wings, its body, and finally the beak. Her father hurried to the lamp. On the mountain the cross of the electric post stood witness.

Rahman: piety and divinity

2008-04-23T14:28:00.002+05:30

here is a page from the Orkut A R Rahman Fans community, fans discussing piety and divinity in Rahman

2008-04-04T09:53:00.002+05:30

A R Rahman one of the 17 Indians in the list of 245 leading executives, public figures and intellectuals -- all aged 40 or younger -- were chosen from around the world by the World Economic Forum for 2008. The honour is bestowed each year by the WEF to recognise and acknowledge the top 200-300 young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.

http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2008/mar/11wef.htm

links to Rahman

2008-04-02T21:16:00.001+05:30

2008-04-02T21:14:00.000+05:30

A R Rahman discography till 2005

http://gopalhome.tripod.com/arrdisc.html

rahman's inetrnationalsm, some comments

2008-03-13T21:26:00.002+05:30

(this article is originally published in EFL-U Filmclub Newsletter Festival Issue, March 2008)

Tere darbar mein khwaja…

“I am not a trendsetter. I am just a beggar to God up above”

With “khwaja mere khwaja” A R Rahman has paid yet another musical tribute to his spiritual mentor Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, the sufi saint. And this is just one intersection. The story is that the song was not actually composed for the movie, but was meant to be in a separate album by Rahman under the label K M Music. Ashutosh Gowariker happened to hear it and wanted it for Jodhaa Akbar. Thus, while all other songs of the film were penned by Javed Akhtar, Khwaja… ‘s lyrics are by Kashif. And KM is Khwaja Moinuddin. In fact, this whole intersection of the sufi saint, the film about the Mughal emperor, the private music label, its discovery by the director, all lead us to more important questions regarding Rahman and his music. When we further go into it, it also concerns questions of autonomy of the different constituents of the industry.

On the launch of KM Music, A R Rahman said, “My label will be devoted to putting out alternate music – the kind of sound I don’t have the freedom to create in movies.”[i] It is known that music directors are bound by the film directors in ways more than one. The film director decides the number of songs, settings for the songs; he selects the final version from a variety of versions[ii], and even suggests the singers[iii]. But this doesn’t mean that the music director is at the mercy of the director, for, it is also the choice of the music director whether to work with a particular director for a particular film. Rahman himself makes this clear, “After Roja, I tended to be very repetitive and stereotyped as a music director because most of my films had numbers, which were dance-oriented. In the past three years[iv], I was very keen on working on a period music. I could get that opportunity with Lagaan. You see, it is difficult to set your mind to Chennai and Mumbai audiences. I do confess that I was struggling to come out of the rut in which I started finding myself. It was very difficult.”[v]

We can number it this way:1) Rahman wants to move away from dance-oriented music to period music, 2) He wants to set his music to audiences other than that of Mumbai and Chennai, and 3) He has finally achieved it. This brings us to the question: what is the relationship between period music and the audiences other than that of Mumbai and Chennai? What is the connection between Rahman’s internationalism, his film selection in Bollywood in the past few years[vi], and the audience that Rahman has in mind?

Rahman’s first grand international project was in Munich in the year 1999 with Michael Jackson, titled Ekam Satyam. The project had English and Sanskrit lyrics, to be performed by MJ and Rahman. Actually meant to be a part of “Michael Jackson and Friends Concert”, its popularity with Jackson fans in the west resulted in it being released as a single. Then came Lagaan, nominated for Oscars. Rahman was keen on continuing period music, with The Legend Of Bhagat Singh, Bose: The Forgotten Hero, Mangal Pandey and now Jodhaa Akbar. In between came Rang De Basanti, noted for its patriotic theme, and Guru[vii]. Bombay Dreams, Warriors of Heaven and Earth and Lord of the Rings too find their place. While it might be the compulsion of the period movies, it is worthwhile to notice the number of religious/prayer songs he has composed in this period too – Piya Haji Ali (Fiza), O Paalanhare (Lagaan), Zikr (Bose), Al Maddath Maula (Mangal Pandey), Ek Onkaar (RDB), and more. There is a marked difference in Rahman’s musical style too, as he tries to delve more into folk and Sufi, and away from his earlier dance numbers.

The musical output of Rahman in the past few years, being as they are expressions of piety and patriotism is not out of sync with his internationalism. In fact, it is the “indianness” that allows him to be international. In other words, Rahman is an example of a continuing Orientalism in the western mind, Rahman is a figure through whom they explore the intricacy that is India. It is the compulsion of this orientalism that the more Rahman is international, the more he should be Indian. This representation of a nation through a man is achieved in various stages, Vande Mataram being the most important moment. Jana Gana Mana added more to it as Rahman fused the anthem, the nation and its diversity in his octave. And when Rahman sang One Love, it was but natural, for Rahman had become the musical ambassador of India.[viii] In other words, Rahman’s internationalism is exigent on Rahman’s authenticity as an Indian[ix]. Rahman’s events then transform into “Indian” events and a celebration of “Indianhood”.[x]

Contrary to discourses of cosmopolitanism, Rahman thus becomes the essential Indian, devout, a musician with a purpose, a musical equivalent of the celebrated mystics of the Orient.

[i] A R Rahman floated his music label on April 18, 2007. The label does not propose to bring out music on its own label, but to sell them to companies like Sony.

http://filmkhabar.com/2007/04/18/ar-rahman-floats-his-own-music-label-km-music/

[ii] a link to a variation of “ey khuda hafiz” from Yuva is available in the A R Rahman Fans community in Orkut.

[iii] It was Maniratnam’s wish that “Tere Bina” from Guru be sung by Rahman.

[iv] The interview, I guess by the reference to Lagaan and Ekam Satyam(in the full text of the interview), should have been in 2001-2. But I couldn’t find any way to know for sure.

[v] http://www.bollyvista.com/article/a/34/2814/

[vi] I will be referring to Bollywood but not Kollywood, because, though Tamil films have wide international audience, they do not compare with the Bollywood films. Sivaji:The Boss, released 2007, was the first-ever Tamil movie to make it to UK Top Ten- at no.9.

[vii] not forgetting Yuva, which stands apart. Lakeer and Tehzeeb were however not very arresting, and therefore ignorable.

[viii] One Love(Ek Mohabbat) was to promote Taj Mahal as one of the seven wonders of the world.

[ix] Interesting to note is the role of Rahman as a musician from East in the reviews of Bombay Dreams. London Opening Night press quotes says “The Wonder of East has worked its magic in the West End”, “BOMBAY DREAMS brings wonder of East to West End”. http://www.reallyuseful.com/rug/shows/bombaydreams/reviewDetail.htm?id=3

The theatre review by Matthew Murray says, “Those musical numbers could hardly be more authentic”. http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/BombayDreams.html

“…A R Rahman’s music seems to be Indian but sometimes tinkered with for the Western ear. It’s pleasant enough and repetitive to be catchy but never satisfying, I suspect, to either culture”, writes Elyse Sommer, “Bombay Dreams comes to Broadway”, Curtain Up: the internet theater magazine of reviews, features, annotated listings. http://www.curtainup.com/bombaydreams.html

a review more negative is by Simon Saltzman for July 7, 2004 edition of US 1 Newspaper, “Indian composer A R Rahman, who is ostensibly known throughout India as “the Asian Mozart”, has written a monotonous and irritating east-meets-west score that thrives on the sound of drums”. http://www.princetoninfo.com/200407/40707p02.html

[x] The Strait Times of Singapore reports of a Ms. Akike Tavaka, 34, who flew into Singapore from Japan to attend Rahman’s concert. After arriving there, she shopped for a salwar-kameez which she wore to the show. Bhagyashree Garekar, “Four Hours of Music Magic”, Sep. 23, 2005.

on Rice

2007-07-23T21:20:00.000+05:30

“In Tibet, rice is still served by chinese”, one of the final messages in “the cup”
“wht rice does he eat?”, asks the old men of kerala, when they confront a legendary greater-than-we,
and we malayalis are told that the rice we eat are given to cattle in Peshawar, or some other macho province of tribal pakistan
and that we share our variety of rice too with the bengalis, the other things being the red flag and some reels of new age movies.
there was once in Kerala, when famine hit india as a whole and Americans had more ingenious ways of propogating capitalism than the communist variety of glossy books, a minister who formulated that importing macroni would solve all food problems of Kerala. That minister was hence called ‘macroni-minister”. but not many families in Kerala eat macroni even in this day.why rice?
“Rice is a staple for a large part of the world’s human population, especially in East, South and Southeast Asia, making it the most consumed cereal grain”, says wikipedia.
so there is “ari”, “cheriyari”, “kuttari”, “pachari”, one for meals, the other for “kanji”, the malayali rice porridge, the last one for biriyani.
“ariyetra, payararanjazhi”, meaning “how much rice? half a knot beans”, is a saying in our good old land for people who give the least connected answers,like this blog which says about rice.

Ayisha

2007-06-19T12:51:00.000+05:30

returning from one of those neerchas, carried by her father on his shoulders, Ayisha saw iblees, the henchmen of Satan, perched on one of the electric posts. It had the body of a vulture, the head of a cretin, and had beaks instead of lips, long and curving upwards. Electric posts were then a novelty, and her uncle, Maimu , had told her some days earlier that these long poles with metal wires were devices of satan in his bid to outmanouvre the mighty Azraeel in his 'lightning' tactics. Though she pointed out the salivating iblees to her father, her father, instead of calling to help the holy warriors of Badr from the heaven above, the three hundred and thirteen mighty warriors riding on their swift and elegant white luminous horses, just chided her to look away from things she needn't be looking at. Her father, who hadn't yet acknowledged the peculiarity of the exact position this strange creature has chosen to install itself, was under the impression that it was just one of his odiyan men, men who could appear in strange shapes to the naked eye, whom he had employed to frighten the debtors...

(to be continued)

this is the story of a people

2007-06-17T12:40:00.000+05:30

are we a bit drifting from Rahman? may be, but we are not, from the times. This blog is also the story of a people, of tales told in the brightness of emergency lights, of lives lived in this country where actions determine time,
and thus it is six o'clock when the two-rupee priced football is whistled to action in the dusty plains when monsoon is still on the hold, and it is timeless once the rains turns the fields into puddles where 'measurement-matches'- another sacrilege like the 'sevens' in this country of mine in that great religion which is football (thanks to N.S.Madhavan who0 wrote this story about Higuita, and about football, and about sacrileges of this far away nation) - have adolscents hiding their height by benting their knee within the looseness their pants can afford.

essentially, we were speaking about community entertainments, and about music, and about both. One good example would be the Puthiangadi Neercha, a replica of the many poorams of Kerala, where grandeour is calculated by the number of elephants. Long before the twentieth century Erzurumis (read Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red) managed to put an end to the neercha, the festival would have ornamented elephants leading the way with men with green and red triangular flags following them...
(ya, those flags are rare in Kerala now, and abound in Hyderabad; once i wrote:

signs, in our youthful reddish rage,
we confined
to time's chronicled cage)
...and then there would be men and children, clothed in their best, and then there would be hawkers selling combs and hairpins and ribbons and wooden elephants and black threads blowed on with the sacred aayats by thangals, the spiritual healers, and taweez and small plastic TV replicas which, when you pressed your eyes to the black circular lens and held it against the sun, showed cheap portrait paintngs of Mammootty, and the seller of the rings with strange stones, black and turquoise which granted visions of the men in the remote corners of the Chineese wall with horns on their nose ("the infidels say tey have explored the whole of the wall, dont ever believe them, oh believers, they are here to lead you astray!"), or of the treasures hidden underground ("but no, that will deprive your vision forever")... and then there would be the music band billowing out what can be heard in Rahman's Tenali , and much more,
and then as the procession proceede, the time would go back, and my maternal uncles' uncles, belonging as they are to the family of a Arab missionary who alighted along with Malik Dinar, Allah's approval ever be with him, holding the standard by the right of their inheritance, in the ecstatsy only a right combination of music, men and religion can produce, would meet the forefather as they landed in the sandy Ponnani one thousand and four hundred years ago...

hasbi rabbee

2007-06-16T18:44:00.000+05:30

this is the song mentioned in the last blog:

Film: Bose, The Forgotten Hero
Music : A.R.Rahman

(the song is Arabic, and is a traditional Islamic song)

hasbi rabbee jallallah
mafi qalbee 'gairullah
noor muhammed sallallah
haq laa ilaha illallah

long ago in my mothers' home

2007-06-16T18:16:00.000+05:30

long ago, before "hasbi rabbi jallallah" was a Rahman song, it used to be a lullaby sung to the babies still in the cradle as they explored the corners of gratification that tears and wail can yield them in taste and warmth in the half-an-hour state-sponsored power cuts we used to have between six-thirty and nine in the evinings. In monsoon, when the rain drops would tatter against the plastic sunshades of our sitting rooms, the wail joined them in a cacophonous mission to set the perfect accoustic background for the horror story my grand mother narrate, herself the most zealous to hear it out as her voice recounted tales warped by time and shrouded in the brightness of the clear skies that only the malayalee monsoons could unwrap. Thus was told the story of the child drowned in the neighbourhood pond, and the subsequent noons of crying the regualrs to the pond would bear witness to, the story of the 'potti' who would lure the men from their beds to the unreachable destinations in fading infinite paths , of men who saw djinns and awoke proclaiming themselves to be Isa, the prophet whom those who have gone astray believe were crucified, poor fellows had they had true knowledge thay would know that Allah had turned Judas to a Isa look-alike, and it was he who was crucified, and Isa would descend back ion the earth from the heavens above to engage in the final duel with satan , and to ultimately slain him where Iraq met syria; stories after stories would follow, and the point here is, they were a family, if not a community exercise.

This blog, away from the djinns and the lunatic Isas, is about A R Rahman, and music. Being interested in music for some time now, the issue now attaining such status as being my research topic now, I have discovered from my personal experience how i never needed haedphones when I was in my mother's house, which is the place of action of the above paragraph. Not that I haven't heard songs there, for in that house, crowded as it once was, my uncle, cousin and i used to sleep in the same room adjaent to the sitting room and my uncle's last public sentence each day would be, "lets have some music", and then he will press the "play" key of the music system, a personal gift to him by his brother, befitting it was to the first graduate from the family, with decks for two cassettes and options for recording from one to another, and then in those dark nights with the rhythmic rain drops and droning mosquitoes, "ghar se nikal te hi" was an effective sleeping pill.

well, you would wonder why do I so exxaggerate, so deviate, so derail, and then end in nowhere. I have this fantasy with nowhereness, and as about the endings, like the last dialogue of "the cup", the indo-tibetan movie,
"What is all this fuss about endings?"

2007-06-15T13:07:00.000+05:30

In '90s the world went music,
true, BEATLES were well ahead,
but '90s marked an entry of popular music into academic circles. Some say there is nothing called 'zeitgeist', that no period of history can be compartmentalized, that all the time of ours, the time when my forefathers could gude the lost ship by flames of a torch which they lit climbing on cocnut tree, the time when my mother could see the sea around 30kms away from the top verandah of her two-storeyed ancestral home, the time when I could hear the trains rhythming their way in the fields of Perassanur in Kuttippuram, Kerala, from my bed in 15km away Kavumpuram; they say all these times are in a continuum, a fluid state of flowing and getting blocked, of moving and stagnating, of dreaming and dying.

But zeitgeist should exist in the unmapped territories of collective unconscious, if you take the following matter into account... on 18 april 2007, when sitting half-buried in the pinching shamefulness of having had to ask the prof for an extension of the presentation I was to do the same day, to 20th of april, I felt in me in a sudden rush of thoughts, of things that had been constantly given to rumination in my mind which just cant get leave of certain thoughts, and that was the thought that I, who was to present a paper of alternative national imagination in a malayalam movie, should cancel the eralier project, and should now take up a paper on A.R.Rahman, who had been convincingly for me the greatest of pop icons in India of the moment, along with SRK.

no, I wont re-present the paper here...

but after my presenmtation is over, with the subsequent discussions outside, i was surprised to see the number of people simultaneously had their well-thinking heades brooding over music, ; and so there was a friend working on MTV, another had already presented something on technology and music and films, and then my friend Sanjeev tells on chat that he is working on noices...

u know, at times we all are caught with e same things..

but today's The Hindu op-ed says of a thesuis where some one claimed that in the techniological space our thoughts are always on the future, which hge claims is a coldwar ploy on controlling the subjects at present. But to be read along is frederic jameson's view that there exists a collective consciousness of a better state of the past, which he claims suggest the existence of a primitive socialist state of affairs.
but A.R.Rahman and the people involved with music are 'present'.

the pleasures of a record

2007-06-14T22:35:00.000+05:30

what is this pleasure when its Rahman?
ever since my friend fazil introduced me to this beautiful brave world,the horizons were ever on the expansion. is it the singer rahman who we look to? or is it the music director? what makes the pleasures of hearing a number?

It was when "kannathil muthamittal" was on the charts that the shiv sena spremo Bal Thackeray accused Rahman's music as repititive. But I would argue that it is an "in-thing" of Rahman, I mean, this what is called "repitition". some of these people say "intertextuality", na? there is a different intertextuality at work in Rahman's music, something which, say when you hear "Indian" that allows to recall "Bombay", and this is secret pleasure that a rahmaniac has as his own, his/her secret corridors of familiar shadows.

2007-05-03T10:22:00.000+05:30

Film : Bose The Forgotten Hero
Dir. : Shyam Benegal
Lyrics : Javed Akhtar
Year : 2005
Song : Tanha Rahi

jothi tor daak shune keu naa aashe if no one comes heeding your call
tobe ekla chalo re walk alone
ekla chalo ekla chalo ekla chalo
ekla chalo re just walk aone.

tanha rahi apni rah chalta jayega the forlorn traveller will tread his way
tanha rahi apni rah chalta jayega
ab to jo bhi hoga dekha jayega now whatever happens will be taken care of
ab to jo bhi hoga dekha jayega
tanha rahi apni rah chalta jayega
tanha rahi apni rah chalta jayega
ab to jo bhi hoga dekha jayega

bojh kitna ho mushkilon ka magar though the hardships weigh heavy on us
na jhuka hain na jhuk sakega yeh sir this head hadn't bowed down, nor will it ever
zinda phir bhi rahega mera zameer my soul and spirit will be alive
jism ko maut bhi aa jaye agar though death shall overtake my body
tanha rahi apni rah chalta jayega
tanha rahi apni rah chalta jayega
ab to jo bhi hoga dekha jayega

baazi pe lagane khatir hum jaan hatheli par laye I have brought my life to gamble with it
ab chahe jiye ab chahe mare jo hona hain woh ho jaye we may die, we may live, hat is to happen will

manzilein kabhi kya milegi humein will we attain our goals
hogi kya sehal kabhi jo raah hain kadi will this difficult road be ever easy
aaj har jawab humko mil jayega this day we'll have all the answers
aa gayi hain aaj faisle ki ghadi this day its the time to decide
tanha rahi apni rah chalta jayega
tanha rahi apni rah chalta jayega
ab to jo bhi hoga dekha jayega
dekha jayega ....

the first two lines (jothi tor......chalo re) is by Rabindranath Tagore

sun ri sakhi

2007-05-01T12:15:00.000+05:30

film : humse hein muqabla

Dir. : Kathir

Lyrics : Mehboob

Song : Sun ri sakhi

sun ri sakhi (hear, my dear)

meri pyari sakhi (my lovely darl)

ye dil kahee khoya hein mera (my heart is lost somewhere)

jaane kahaa ise bhool gaye (no idea where i lost that)

nahi kuch bhi hein mujhko pata (I dont know any thing)

teri paayal mein mene doond liya (I searched at your anklets)

tere kadmon tale sajni (treading your ways)

pyaar kiya tho jaan gaya (when I fell in love i came to know)

ye mushkil hein kitni (how difficult the task is)

mere saason mein tera pyaar basa (your lovelives in my breath)

aankhon mein tumi sajni (in my eyes, you reside)

the tune of the song is inspired from a tamil tune 2000 years old.

the film is a dubbing of Kaadhalan

in response to the Magazine article

2007-04-29T13:03:00.000+05:30

this is in response to The Hindu Magazine article (dated:29/04/2007)

the article points out how the Rahman music fits just the studio, and raises the question whether the icon can grow out of his box which is easily 'repititive'?

this is a fundamental misunderstanding about new age music,

the new age music is not expected to be sung LIVE in the first place, facilitated as it is by technological improvisations as loops, multitracked mixing and synthesising. the study of music cannot divorce itself from the industry and the technology in vogue, and as such, todays industry is driven by two factors- formation of global labels, and easy availability. A global sensibility re4quires less accent on the singing part, and more on the instrumental and the simulation part. and easy availability is met by storage devices as CDs and DVDs and i-pods and softwares like mp3. When bothy of this combine, there is a necessity for the song to be 'unsingable' live. in other words, modern day music effectively undertakes to alienate the product that is the final song, from some of its producers, e.g. the singers, and rather places them, by its unapproachability in reproduction, on a cult figure that is the music director.

in response to the point on 'repitition': the modern levels of consumption, characterised as it is by 'occassionals' and 'throw away's is not meant to last, but to be reproduced on a large-scale. As Adorno says, culture industry is a mix of the old and the familiar. the interesting part of the music is meant to be reproduced, and the world which swears by retail therapy is definite to consume it as a novelty.

lyrics from kaadhal desam(1996)

2007-04-24T23:38:00.000+05:30

Film : kaadhal desam
Dir : Kadir
Lyrics : Vaali
Year : 1996

thendrale thendrale breeze, cool zephyr,
melle nee veesu blow soft
koode melle nee pesu and talk to me

karayin madiyil nadiyum thoongum the river sleeps on the lap of the banks
kavaley maranthu thoongu sleep oblivious of all your worries
iravin madayil ulakam thoongum the day sleeps on the lap of the night
ini yen kanavil thoongu now, sleep in my dreams

2007-04-24T23:24:00.000+05:30

"genius learns only from itself, talent chiefly from others."
- Arnold Schoenberg

2007-04-24T21:21:00.000+05:30

A. R. Rahman launches own music label
By Vickey Lalwani ©2006 Bollyvista.com

A. R. Rahman has fulfilled a long-cherished dream of floating his own music label - KM Music. His label will only distribute music recorded in his studio in Chennai to large music companies like Sony.

KM are the initials of a Sufi saint from the South who Rahman wants to honour through his music. However, none of his film projects will be on the KM label.

ye jo des hein tera

2007-04-21T11:19:00.000+05:30

lets have the lyrics of a song:

song: ye jo des
film: Swades (Bollywood)
dir : Ashutosh Gowariker
lyrics: Javed Akhtar

ye jo des hei tera (this your land)
swadeas hei tera (is your motherland)
tujhe hei pukara (its cal;ling out to you)

ye woh bandhan hei (this is that tie)
jo kabhi thooth nahee sakta (that wont ever break away)

tujhse zindagi hei ye kehy rahee (this life tells you)
sab tho paa liya ("you have earned everything)
ab he kya kamee("what is it that you are wanting in)
yu tho saaree sukh hei barse ("all the bounties are showered on you)
par door thu hei apne ghar se ("but you are far away from your home)
aa laut chal thu ab deewane ("c'mon, return you crazy)
jahan koi tho tujhe apne maane ("where someone will consider you theirs")
aawaaz de tujhe bulaane wahi des (the land is calling out aloud , beckoning you)

mithi ki hei jo khushboo (the fragrance that this earth holds)
thu kaise bhulayega (how can u ever forget that?)
thu chahe kahee jaye (no matter wherever you go)
thu laut ke aayega ( you will return)
nayee nayee rahon mein (in novel ways)
dabee dabee aahon se (in hushed up whispers)
khoye khoye dil se tere (to your lost heart)
koi ye kahega( someone will say)
ye jo des he tera, swades he tera (this your land is your motherland)

ye pal hei wahi (this is that moment)
jis mein hei chupi (in which is hidden)
poori ek sadi (an age)
saaree zindagi (all the life)
ye na pooccho raaste pe ka hei (dont ask what awaits you in the way)
aayee hei is tarah do rahe (here opens two paths)
thu hee tho hei raah jo sujhaye (you are the one to solve the problem)
thu hee tho hei ab jo ye bataaye (you are the one who should decide)
jaye tho kis disa mein jaye wahi des (which path this nation should take)

ye jo des hei tera , swadews hei tera (this your land is your motherland)

2007-04-20T23:59:00.000+05:30

http://www.4shared.com/dir/2175921/8fc0adb6/jingles.htmlLots of ARR Jingles and Promos ---Download!!!
Heres a huge list of ARR jingles and Promos i hav uploaded...Download them frm the link given below the list...Njoy!!!

Jingles And Promos list:

Airtel Tunes (7 Versions)
Asian Paints Jingle(3 versions)
Worldspace Ad (5 versions)
Leo Coffee
Leo spring
Remanika sarees Ad
Cinthol Ad
Spirit Of unity (4 tunes)
Asianet Theme
Banyan theme
NDTV 24x7
Sun Tv Pongal theme
Lord of the rings
Provoked theme music

Download Link :

http://www.4shared.com/dir/2175921/8fc0adb6/jingles.html

(this is from orkut A R Rahman fans)