A R Rahman, on rediff.com

He had just done a concert in Chennai, the time was midnight and you would think AR Rahman was ready to wind up a hard-driving day. But no -- he was upbeat, obviously in a great frame of mind, when he appeared on Rediff chat.

During his interaction with fans worldwide, there was no sign of impatience, no indication that his mind was on other things -- though he had, after the chat, to complete work on some remixes and catch a flight to London for the music release of Lord Of The Rings.

Rahman put all those preoccupations out of mind, and answered questions with patience and eloquence. For those who missed the event, here is the transcript:

Mahesh Londhe: I feel 1947 Earth is your all time best music. I am not against synthesizer or latest techniques but have a strong opinion that music is nothing but 'feelings' and therefore a song should be recorded in one go without a break as it was done previously. What is your opinion?

A R Rahman says: Thank you very much. I definitely have a lot of freedom when I work with Deepa Mehta, since she doesn't nitpick into every little thing. She just gives the general idea and disappears till we make beautiful music for her and she responds later. Freedom is very important in the process of creating music and songs. There are a lot of issues when we record music together, because even if one person is not right, then the whole recording becomes unusable. Hence, by the use of multi-tracks, we definitely try to simulate the seamlessness in a song. But the practice is still on. The music of Lord of the Rings, the musical, and Golden Age, which I recorded recently were all with a live orchestra in one of the most prestigious studios in London.

Aravind AM: Sir, in most of your songs, there are very minute and very fine sounds, which may hardly be noticeable to a normal listener, but if we actually notice them, we appreciate the sheer brilliance. What motivates to to make all those fine nuances in your songs, though the efforts that you put in for beautifying the song may not reach the audience?

A R Rahman says: There is a story of Michelangelo -- if I am not wrong -- which I heard recently. It seems that he was painting beautiful pictures at the back of the church. People told him you are a fool because you are not painting in the front where people can appreciate your work. The answer was: I do my work for God. I think he can watch it anywhere. I thought it was a brilliant answer because everything doesn't need to have instant appreciation. Even if one of you have appreciated those fine nuances, that is enough for me.

Armstrong S A: I feel that quality and sounds of Roja songs are far better than your recent ones. What is the main reason for that? Are you missing Sridar and other sound engineers?

A R Rahman says: At the time of Roja, the consumer music systems used were of lower qualities and we had to cater to a mono-magnetic tape. Hence we had to exaggerate the high frequencies and use a lot of specialisers. Things have changed in the course of time and we have now taken a universal approach in the sound quality to make our recordings sound warm and friendly to every system. That covers the recording part. The sounds which you say were inspired from the film of Roja, definitely another film soundtrack will come where you will feel the same or maybe better vibe again.

Vineet: Hi Rahman sir. I am a fan of you. I hear that you are coming to Dubai for a concert. Is it true? If yes, is it a public or a private concert? We are very eager to see u here in Dubai.

A R Rahman says: You'll know very soon.

Shani George: Guruji, what is that one special thing you would like to tell your millions of fans?

A R Rahman says: Love makes the heart lighter and makes you see things objectively. Hate darkens you and makes you heavy at heart and uneasy. Make a choice. God bless.

Sathya: Hi Rahman, I am a die hard fan of you and have been listening to your music since Roja. I have read in your interviews that you pray five times a day. Also, it's because you love your job you can avoid burnout. But amid such high pressures, how are you able to do that? Do you get pressurised any time by producers to finish fast, which can cause you lose your coolness and creativity?

A R Rahman says: Like how we find time to eat food and sleep, we need to find time for 'spiritual food' too. If we have our mind balanced and light, all other things are easier to handle.

Chekka Prakash: Why are you not giving music to Telugu movies?

A R Rahman says: I am in the process of doing a Telugu movie directed by S J Suriya, and starring Pavan Kalyan. The music of Jodhaa Akbar will also release in Telugu.

S Somu: Sir, don't neglect my request. Give me some work to do... anything... I will travel my life with you, sir. I don't know more about music but I can do any kind of work. Don't neglect this.

A R Rahman says: I never intentionally neglect people, but due to overwhelming queue in my work, it might seem so. I have all of you in my prayers and love you all.

Amit Iyer: Good Evening Rahmanji. I'm your die hard fan from Mumbai. I love each and every track you have composed, right from Roja to Jodhaa Akbar and have collected CD's and cassettes of each of your compositions. I heard you are going to compose some devotional album soon with your Guru Shri Dakshinamoorthy. When is it about to be released? I just want to meet you at least once. You have come to Mumbai several times but I always missed the opportunity of meeting you. Hope we will meet soon. All the best for your future projects. Warm regards to you and your family.

A R Rahman says: You are right. Mr Dakshinamurthy has composed a beautiful album from the Tamil Sufi text of Gunangudi Mastan based on Carnatic ragas. Though we have done around six songs, we are still finding it difficult to find the time to complete the other songs. But it's a very passionate project. Do wait for it.

Arshitha V: Hi Rahman Sir. How are you? As we all know that technology is having a great impact in the world of music, how are you able to keep yourself abreast with the current technology? Also, do you feel that you need more contributions from the world of science to music? I value your opinion a lot on this.

A R Rahman says: I've not seen any great innovation in instruments recently except for a few, which is the continium fingerboard and a very unique instrument in North India where a person has combined a violin and a Sarangi. Indian music could have a great scientific instrument emulating all the gamakas and ragas with a polyphonic touch. I might have missed something which is already there.

A R Rahman says: I read most of your questions... thought I will just pick and choose the ones I felt like answering due to lack of time. I thank you for taking your time for writing all those beautiful kind words.

Courtesy: Rediff.com

The Mughal Ear

A weekend trawl through AR Rahman’s scores for period films — in anticipation of his soundtrack for Jodhaa Akbar — resulted in an answer to a question I never knew existed: What would Apur Sansar look like gussied up in mainstream garb, with stars and songs? The scene where Apu wakes up and discovers his wife’s hairpin in bed and toys with it, possibly recalling the events of the night that caused the trinket to slip away in the first place — couldn’t it be scored to Dheemi dheemi from 1947: Earth? When a soundtrack first makes its way into the world, it is bound so inexorably to its parent film that, short of a lobotomy, it’s impossible to listen to a song and not think of the way it plays on screen. But then the years pass and the film is left behind in the half-hidden recesses of memory, and that’s when the song, if it’s any good, assumes a life of its own. That’s when it snaps the threads that ground it to a particular film, that’s when it becomes a universal encapsulation of its essence. When we listen to Abhi na jaao chhod kar today, doesn’t it appear to have been crafted to express not Dev Anand’s entreaties of love so much as ours? And isn’t Dheemi dheemi a perfect musical analogy to the thoughts running through Apu that dreamy postcoital morning: Tu jo paas hai, mujhe pyaas hai, tere jism ka ehsaas hai?


Art is often described as abstract because solid, mathematical evaluation criteria cannot be applied to matters of discernment and taste, but a simple application of ratio-proportion to the soundtrack of 1947: Earth shows you concretely — at least, it showed me — that this is one of Rahman’s most successful soundtracks: the number of songs that have survived the wear-and-tear of overlistening (and time) is the same as the number of songs in the album. It’s a perfect one — as are two others, the magnificent soundtracks for Water and Mangal Pandey (okay, Dekho aayi Holi apart), and this makes me wonder if Rahman has, in his studio, a secret vault of everlasting goodies he opens only for filmmakers named Mehta, namely Deepa and Ketan (and perhaps, on rare occasion, for a Benegal and his Zubeidaa; rediscovering Saiyyan chhodo mori baiyyan and Dheemi dheemi gaaoon were the other highs of my weekend). A Gowarikar, on the other hand, appears way down on the period-film list, for I found that the songs from Lagaan sounded better when echoing nostalgically in the confines of my head than when leaking out of the speakers in the present day. O re chhori was every bit as folksy and lovely as I remembered it, but the rest of the album shone only in parts. I perked up at the rousing four-line openings of Baar baar haan and Ghanan ghanan, but the songs subsequently meandered away from memorableness. And while Lata Mangeshkar’s of-a-certain-age voice conveys a palpable ache in the bell-jar rise-and-fall of the line Chanda mein tum hi to bhare ho chaandni, O paalanhaare was otherwise a bit of a chore to get through.


Rahman and Gowarikar were far more successful when they collaborated on the contemporary soundscape of Swades. Yeh jo des hai tera is still one for the ages, and I’d forgotten what a beauty Saawariya saawariya was, with the closing portions of its stanzas taxiing down the tarmac before achieving blissful liftoff at Bhooli hoon main jaise apni dagariya, after which the tune gracefully descends to the mellower altitudes of the mukhda. And now, with Jodhaa Akbar, the composer and the director go back in time for another stab at another period, and after a few listens, the album seems to hover between their earlier efforts — though, thankfully, closer to Swades in terms of achievement. I feel it will age better than Lagaan, but unlike Swades, what appears to be missing here is that undefinable, perhaps even unknowable, aspect of the creative process capable of nudging an album from solid goodness into flat-out greatness. In other words, a perfect one this isn’t. The craftsmanship is extraordinary, and yet, as a whole, it’s only intermittently that this soundtrack worms its way into your soul. Perhaps it’s just that we’re too greedy, too demanding when it comes to this composer, or perhaps Gowarikar simply needs to eavesdrop on his music director’s sittings with one of the Mehtas.


The percussion heavy Azeem-o-shaan shahenshah extrapolates to an entire number the love-in-the-time-of-war feel in the interludes of Ilayaraja’s Sundari kannaal oru seidhi, from Thalapathi. I was instantly hooked by the rhythm patterns — all pounding drums and clashing steel — and it’s a superb touch that the staccato lines of melody, the unvarying ups and downs intoned with almost military precision, gradually segue into a pattern of notes that flows more organically, more tunefully, as if hinting at the warrior-emperor’s impending transformation at the hand of love and in the arms of his queen. But beyond that conception, there isn’t much to hold on to in the number, which wears its welcome out by the second stanza. This sense of gradually diminishing returns isn’t as pronounced in Kehne ko Jashn-e-bahara hai, the first of the love songs (nicely sung by Javed Ali, who sounds as if Sonu Nigam’s throat had been roughed up, just a bit, with sandpaper), but if the number feels less than what it could have been, it’s due to the strangely truncated second interlude (especially in light of the first one, filigreed with exquisite work on strings). But the tune is gorgeous — the instrumental version, with a delectable flute replacing the voice, bears this out — and Ali glides through it admirably. If I had to pick a nit, I would wish for a little more variation, perhaps emotion, in his singing. It’s as if he mapped out the high notes and the low notes and set about conquering them with a mountaineer’s diligence rather than a musician’s grace — but, again, the melodic lines are so stirring, I couldn’t help returning for a fifth, or a fifteenth, listen.


The other love song is the magical In lamhon ke daaman mein, one of Rahman’s most structurally ambitious compositions and easily this album’s standout. Hearing Sonu Nigam (with the backing of a robust chorus) seesaw expertly between crescendo and decrescendo, between moody meditation and defiant declaration, it’s as if a committed, if weak-willed, lover grew a spine of steel through the course of the song, then flopped lovesick on his mattress again, then roused himself once more, then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and slipped back into supine romantic longing. There’s so much character in this song, it’s as if stage directions were written into its crevices. I felt this especially when Madhushree begins the second antara with humming that sounds almost absent-minded, as if she walked into the recording studio lost in her own thoughts and snapped out of her reverie just in time to ready herself for the unexpected contours of the end of the stanza, beginning with ki prem aag mein jalte hain. The anticipation to see this number play on screen is at once thrilling and terrifying. What a canvas to mount a picturisation on... but what if they aren’t up to it?


The mood of this pair of love songs finds interesting contrast in a pair of equal-opportunity devotional numbers, making this soundtrack, if nothing else, some sort of secular triumph. Khwaja mere khwaja, sung by Rahman, begins with a number of overlapping dissonances that find somewhat pat resolution almost instantly. There are interesting rhythm patterns and a great snatch of interlude music that goes on to colour the subsequent stanzas, but this isn’t a patch on — to take a loose genre equivalent — Al maddath maula from Mangal Pandey. But the instrumental version is a drop-dead stunner, veering into bylanes uncharted by the original and coming off like Pachelbel’s Canon in D reconfigured for strings and an oboe. There’s a breathtaking purity of purpose in this piece that’s unmatched by anything else in the album — or perhaps only by Bela Shende’s exquisite cry from the heart that kicks off Manmohana. The soulful mukhda is a thing of beauty, the orchestral tapestries are lushly woven with alternating flute and strings, but the stanzas are disappointingly one-note. Javed Akhtar, however, compensates somewhat with an extremely startling line as Shende drops to a murmur near the end, as if exhausted by the fervour of her full-throated devotion. “Bansi ban jaoongi, in honton ki ho jaoongi,” she whispers, and in wishing that she were a flute in service of those Lips, she reminds us that bhakti and shringar, the spiritual and the sensual, are oftentimes one and the same. And that’s true of great music too, which operates as much on the pleasure centres of the brain as the strings of the heart — and there are times the soundtrack for Jodhaa Akbar comes tantalisingly close, but it’s no hookah.

Courtesy: NewIndpress.com