A R Rahman..earlydays....the turning

THE YEAR - 1992:

During this period, on one of his trips to Bombay he met the veteran Hindi music director Naushad Ali who was very impressed by the young Rahman's work and asked him to try his hand at composing for films. Rahman was initially a little hesitant about entering films mainly because of the attitude of most movie makers towards music, where songs were used as just fillers and something to give the audience a break during a movie. But in 1991, he was given an offer that would change his life. At the awards function where he received the award for Best Jingle Composer for the Leo Coffee ad,he was approached by the man known as the Spielberg of India, Mani Ratnam. In the course of his interactions with Mani Ratnam, he was offered the responsibility of composing music for the director's forthcoming film. Rahman, inspite of his reluctance to seriously take up work in films, accepted the offer since Mani Ratnam had the reputation of a director with a keen taste for good music and he was sure the director would do justice to his compositions on screen.

Rahman would later say, "I wasn't sure myself why I accepted Roja. I was offered Rs.25,000 for it, a sum that I could make in three days composing ad jingles. I think it was the prospect of working with Mani that enticed me. Mani is no the usual kind of director who uses songs as fillers. He takes great pains over the music of his films. I love his picturisations, he can elevate a routine song by 400 percent; give it a new dimension." All the same, as a newcomer Rahman was terrified over his film debut. Expectations were high. What a fall if he failed! "Mani praised everything I did. Later I realised it was to keep me going. He discarded whatever bore the influence of others and picked out tunes that had my individual stamp. ''This is you!" he'd say.''

Rahman's D-Day arrived when 'Roja' was released on August 15th, 1992. It was awaited with curiosity since it was Mani Ratnam's first film without Illaiyaraja. Sceptics doubted the ability of a 25-year old debutant. The entire film world and filmgoers were in for a pleasant surprise. Rahman delivered the goods and how. To call the music a superhit would be an understatement. Rahman became a household name in Tamil Nadu overnight and the score of 'Roja' was the first step in his changing the face of Indian film music. 'Roja' not only won the heart of millions with its music it also won every conceivable award in music that year. Rahman also got the Rajat Kamal for best music director at the National Film Awards, the first time ever by a debutant. He was flooded with offers to do more films. He gradually cut down on his work in ads and subsequently moved into film music full time. And there was no looking back for A. R. Rahman. With 'Roja', A. R. Rahman had finally arrived.

Recalling the massive success of his first film, Rahman says, "I was lucky to set a sound in the first film. And I had the right people like Mani Ratnam guiding me to achieve it also and by the grace of god it set and the people know from the moment the song is heard that this is Rahman's." Mani Ratnam, in response says, "I was not trying to any favours for Rahman. I was trying to do a film, I wanted good music and I was searching for somebody who would and I heard a demonstration tape of his which he had sent across. I thought that in the first note of the piece that he had sent me was really brilliant, really outstanding piece. So I went across to his studio and he played me some more, lots of things which he had done for jingles and a few other musical pieces he has done for somebody else. They were quite amazing and I had no doubts that he would be right for my film. How much he would grow, I was not looking at. I was looking at predominately my film at that point of time. He was ready to break a lot of conventions that were there in terms of music at that point of time, in terms of recording at that point in time. So I was very lucky to find someone who was willing to break away and do something different. To that extent it was absolutely perfect. He is the perfect bridge between today's technology and Indian music. He has the soul of Indian music inside and there is a lot of engineering and recording talent in him. He is able to blend the two together. He is a very talented person."

Producers began to queue up at his doorstep. But even at that young age, Rahman was very mature and sagacious. He did not let success go to his head and was very choosy about what he accepted. He had his priorities set right from the beginning. For a person who had struggled throughout his childhood, he did not let insecurity get the better of him and wisely opted for quality over quantity and refrained from signing films blindly. "Rather than making money, I believe in making people happy; all other things are secondary. That is why I am not interested in a lot of movies but only in one at a time. I like directors whom I can vibe with. Ten years of experience in this field has made me quite frustrated. I have evolved a technique which requires a lot of time. Other music directors record a song in seven or eight hours. But I am different. We do a basic sitting and we record it. We record the voice and I add instrument by instrument to improve the quality." He also began to formally learn Indian classical music, Carnatic from Dakshinamurthy and N. Gopalakrishnan and Hindustani from Krishnan Nair. He took classes in film music from Nithyanandham and Western Classical from Jacob John. He also learnt the qawwalli style from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan".

THE YEAR - 1993:

The following year, 1993, saw a lot of new releases that made him more popular. His second film 'Pudhiya Mugam' with director Suresh Menon was also a success but was not in the same league as 'Roja'. It was his third film "Gentleman" with debutante director Shankar that firmly established him as the new king of Tamil film music. 'Gentleman' became a bigger hit than 'Roja' especially the song 'Chikku bukku rayile'. Rahman also did a film in Malayalam called 'Yodha' for the brothers Sangeeth and Santosh Sivan, and two films in Telugu titled 'Super Police' and 'Gangmaster', all of which were moderate successes. But his Malayalam and Telugu films have remained relatively unknown till date, inspite of having the classic Rahman touch in them. 'Yodha' particularly was offbeat featuring Nepali, Tibetan and Buddhist music in tune with the film's setting.

His other films in Tamil in that and the subsequent year were 'Uzhavan' with Kadhir, 'Kizhakku Cheemayile' with Bharathiraaja, with both of whom he would work on many more films in the future, 'Vandicholai Chinnarasu', and 'Pudhiya Mannargal'. All the scores were only moderately successful. But it was his second score for Mani Ratnam in 'Thiruda Thiruda' and for K.Balachander in 'Duet' that really stood out. Rahman redefined film music with his score in 'Thiruda Thiruda'. While the film itself did not do too well, the music became an all time chartbuster and the Tamil songs of 'Thiruda Thiruda' appeared on Hindi language countdown shows. It was for the first time that Tamil songs became popular on a national scale. His equally unconventional score for 'Duet' centering around one instrument - the saxophone, played by one of its noted Indian exponents Kadri Gopalnath, was also widely appreciated and is considered to be one of Rahman's best scores.

THE YEAR - 1994:

In late-1994, 'Roja' was dubbed into Hindi. Needless to say, both the movie and the music become phenomenal successes. This heralded a new trend where every Rahman film was necessarily a trilingual with the film getting dubbed into Telugu and Hindi. 'Roja' was also later dubbed into Malayalam, Marathi and Bengali. At the time of Roja's success in Hindi, Rahman's second film for Shankar, 'Kadhalan' featuring dancing sensation Prabhudeva was released. It was as if the movie was structured around the brilliant score that Rahman produced for Kadhalan. While the entire score was a runaway hit, one song 'Mukkala Muqabla' caught the imagination of the entire nation, never mind if the song was in Tamil. "Muqabla' became the flavour of the year. The song was played at every club, disco, restaurant, marriage hall and street corner across the country and went down in Indian movie history as one of the most popular songs of all time. There was not a soul in the country who was neither dancing to it or humming it. With this song Rahman became a nationally recognised figure. The song was plagiarised freely by Bombay's tunesmiths and nearly a dozen versions of the song were churned out, a feat that earned 'Muqabla' and Rahman a place in the Limca Book of Records, the Indian equivalent of the Guinness Book of Records.

But Rahman was more pleased about the immense popularity of the song 'Ennavale Adi Ennavale' which won Carnatic vocalist Unnikrishnan, making his film debut with this song, the National Award, because he felt that it is easy to compose a dance number like 'Muqabla' which is here today and gone tomorrow but is real hard work to produce an everlasting gem like 'Ennavale'. He said that he had been inspired by a 2000 year old Tamil composition. Overnight most Rahman tunes in Tamil reappeared in Hindi albeit under the baton of other music directors. Three other releases of Rahman that year were 'Pavithra' , 'Karuthamma' with Bharathiraaja and "May Maatham', a film that was originally supposed to be made by Mani Ratnam but was later made by his cousin Balu. One interesting story about May Maatham went thus. Producer G. Venkateshwaran, incidentally Mani Ratnam's brother, sold the rights of the music of the film to three companies simultaneously on the strength of Rahman's score. Lahiri, Pyramid and HMV shelled out huge sums, sure of the score's success but unaware of the producer's subterfuge. When the deed was discovered the companies took GV to court. He finally sold the rights to Pyramid who had offered him the highest sum, mollified Lahiri by offering them the rights of his next film with Rahman, Indira -diretced by Suhasini Maniratnam, and had an out-of-court settlement with HMV. In 1994 Rahman also won the Filmfare Award, Tamil Nadu State Award and many others for 'Gentleman'. He also won the Filmfare-R. D. Burman Award for best new musical talent.

Following the unprecedented success of 'Muqabla' Rahman realised the importance of not only having to do original Hindi scores but also ensure that the dubbed Hindi versions of his Tamil films were released simultaneously, to prevent the continued blatant lifting of his tunes by Bollywood tunesmiths. He stepped into the cutthroat world of Bollywood when he signed two Hindi films, one for director Mahesh Bhatt and one for the Seengals of Compact Disc India to be directed by Priyadarshan. While the film with Mahesh Bhatt was shelved even before a scene was canned the other film was taken over by R.Mohan('Good Knight' Mohan) of Shogun Films and would appear much later as 'Kabhi Na Kabhi'. But his first original release in Hindi would actually be the third film that he would sign.

Popular Telugu director Ramgopal Varma was also setting foot into Bollywood just then with two films, one a remake of one of his Telugu films 'Gaayam' which had a script by Mani Ratnam and the other titled 'Rangeela'. Following a strong recommendation from friend and colleague Mani Ratnam, Varma signed on Rahman for 'Rangeela'. Following this, directors from Bollywood clamoured to work with the 'whiz-kid' and Rahman also signed Bollywood movie mogul Subhash Ghai's Magnum Opus 'Shikhar' and noted art film director Govind Nihalani's 'Droh-kaal'. But 'Shikhar' was shelved and Rahman was forced to opt out of 'Droh-kaal' when he lost all his compositions for the movie owing to a computer system crash. But later Rahman would work with both directors, with Ghai in 'Taal - The Beat of Passion' and with Nihalani in 'Takshak'. Rahman was very frustrated about not being able to work in 'Droh-kaal' and rued the loss of his compositions for the movie. He recounted later that it was one of the most unique experiences for him.

THE YEAR - 1995:

In early 1995 'Kadhalan' was dubbed into Hindi as 'Humse Hai Muqabla' and needless to say, went the same way as the original. In April 1995, Rahman's third film with Mani Ratnam, the controversial 'Bombay' was released. The successful partnership that he had forged with his mentor went to new heights with the music of this film. The music of 'Bombay' was one of the most awaited scores and was hailed as a classic. With this film, Rahman also formally took to playback singing. Rahman had lent his voice to his compositions earlier too but they had been part of the chorus or bit pieces like 'Marhaba' in 'Urvashi' in 'Kadhalan' or background pieces and interludes like 'Yelelo' in 'Chinna Chinna Aasai' in 'Roja'. But 'Hamma Hamma' in 'Bombay' was Rahman's first complete song. With 'Humma Humma' Rahman came to be regarded as much a playback singer as a composer. It became an amusing and common sight at various award functions to see the comperes trying to cajole Rahman into singing on stage and Rahman coming up with hilarious excuses to avoid the same. 'Bombay' also became the first Rahman film to be released in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi simultaneously. 'Humma Humma' became an instant chartbuster and went on to become the blockbuster of the year.

Rahman composed a haunting and surreal instrumental theme with a long and eerie flute prelude to capture the sombre mood of the film. The evocative, soul-stirring and sensitive theme music, with a remarkably outstanding flute interlude by his flautist Naveen, of 'Bombay' touched the hearts of many and was included by popular British-Indian Artiste Talvin Singh as a part of his album "Sounds from the Asian Underground' and aroused a great deal of curiosity in A. R. Rahman's music among international music connoisseurs. A critic named Kingsley Marshall had this to say of the Bombay Theme - "Establishing itself through soundtracked strings, which sits menacingly in a cradle of drifting flute rises - epic horns introducing a full orchestral progression. Although classical music is more than a little unusual in a compilation of dance music, the beauty of the piece warrants its inclusion - in a class above most of the material I've heard in the last couple of months with regards both production and arrangement. Simply stunning." The music of 'Bombay' became the biggest seller in the history of Indian films toppling 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun' from the top. Till date 'Bombay' has sold close to 15 million units in all languages.

Following closely on the heels of 'Humse Hai Muqabla' and 'Bombay', Rahman's first original score in Hindi, 'Rangeela' was awaited with great expectations. Carrying the tremendous burden of the enormous expectations of the public once again, Rahman did not disappoint. 'Rangeela' became an instant runaway success. With 'Rangeela' Rahman had successfully stormed the Bollywood bastion. Though Aamir Khan's performance in the film did help in sustaining the film at the box-office, it was Rahman's music that brought the crowds in droves to the theatres. Every song in the film became a phenomenal hit. With the songs 'Rangeela Re' and 'Tanha Tanha' Rahman brought veteran singer Asha Bhonsle back into the limelight. Crowds danced to the music in the theatres and forced the theatres into showing the songs again. People whistled in the theatres as his name appeared in the credits of the movie. He hogged equal space with the actors on the publicity material of the film. For the first time a music director was also considered as one of the 'stars' of the film. The Tamil Nadu distributor of Rangeela, apprehensive about how Rangeela would perform there, since it was a Hindi film and none of the stars were particularly well known in that part of the country, took the advice of his brother-in-law, Ganshyam Hemdev, of Pyramid Music, and did away with the actors altogether from the posters and replaced them with a mugshot of Rahman with the catchline "The first original score of A.R.Rahman in Hindi". And sure enough, crowds flocked to watch the movie like crazy and for the first time a Hindi film was a runaway success in Tamil Nadu.

Late 1995 saw the release of 'Indira' directed by Suhasini Maniratnam where Rahman came up with a score with a rural touch. The score met with lukewarm success with a couple of songs 'Thoda Thoda' and 'Nila Kaigiradhu' becoming popular. By the end of 1995, Rahman was the No.1 composer in the country, all at the age of 28. Hailed by various critics as 'the true successor to R.D.Burman' and the 'Messiah of Music' he had endeared himself to the Bombay film crowd as well but Bollywood music directors were none too happy about his success. Not only were they now unable to rip off his tunes without a care but they had to compete with him on their own turf to boot. Rahman began to reportedly charge over 1 crore rupees (10 million) per film, more than three times that of his nearest competitor. But most producers were readily willing to shell out even that amount forcing him to further hike his fees as a deterrent and keep the producers at bay. The ones who could not sign up Rahman took someone else and asked him for a 'Rahman jaisa gaana'(literally - Rahman type song - meaning a song in the style of Rahman's music). He had become a national idol and cult figure. His style of music had become the rage of the day.

Rahman's music also began to arouse interest internationally. He was treated like a God and crowned with titles like 'Isai Arasan'(Emperor of Music); 'Isai Puyal' (Musical Storm) and 'Melody King'. Adulation that was reserved for the biggest of film stars was showered on him. Moviegoers cheered wildly and threw money at the screen when his name appeared on the credits. Films that were sold on the strength of the stars in it or its directors now began to sell just on the strength of the name A. R. Rahman attached to it and attract fabulous initial responses when released. The music rights of the movie, till then just a nominal source of additional income for the producer, became a separate territory in its own right and commanded prices equivalent to the distribution rights. Any Rahman sound track used to sell out within hours of its release. For the first time one could see crowds queuing up outside music stores on the morning of the release of any Rahman soundtrack. Crowds that used to leave the movie hall for a break during the songs stayed put firmly in their seats and took in every note of the songs in Rahman's films. People came in to music stores and asked if there were any new releases by Rahman, instead of the practice of asking for a film by name or by a that of a starring popular actor. But Rahman had a sound head on his shoulders and took none of this overwhelming acclaim to mind. He had his feet firmly planted to the ground and went about his work with the same devotion and dedication as before. He did not give a dozen interviews a week and shoot his mouth off like most others did. In fact he became very elusive and remained as media-shy as ever. He rarely if ever met the media, going to great lengths to avoid them and would not even say more than a 'Thank You' at awards nites inspite of rpeated requests for rendering a song on stage. This earned him the nickname 'Artful Dodger'.

In 1995 he yet again won the Filmfare Award and the Tamil Nadu State Award , among many others, for 'Kadhalan'. He was also a very strong contender for the National Award. But according to Chetan Anand, the Chairman of the Jury for the National Awards for that year "Rahman's music in 'Kadhalan' had a great deal of variety which established the versatility of the composer and swung most members in the jury to his side, but since 'Kadhalan' was a typical masala movie, we thought it would send the wrong signals to film makers and decided against giving it the award". End 1995 also saw the release of an album of his favourite lyricist, Vairamuthu's double album of poetry amp;'Thenvandhu Paayudhe' where he scored the background music for Vairamuthu's recitation. But the album remained very inconspicuous. He consolidated his hold on Bollywood and signed more Hindi films with Shekhar Kapoor's 'Tararampampam' (which is yet to be made), Boney Kapoor's 'Pukaar' to be directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi and Ramgopal Varma's 'Daud'.

Fresh from the success of his "Bandit Queen", director Shekhar Kapoor planned "Tararampampam" as a mega musical with 10 songs. Rumours that Rahman himself would be producing the movie abounded. But Kapoor took for foreign shores leaving the movie unmade as yet. He also agreed to do a film in Hindi for his schoolmate turned director Shivendra Singh titled 'Waqia' and later a second film with him titled 'Ittefaq'. Rahman was to work with Gulzar on both the movies. Both the films never got made unfortunately. Rahman's first score for Rajnikanth was released, with 'Muthu', in 1995. The score was awaited with high expectations and one witnessed serpentine queues outside music stores on the morning of the soundtrack's release and cassettes were even sold at a premium. Though the music did very well it was criticised for not suiting Rajnikanth's superstar image. The song 'Thillana Thillana' became a chartbuster. He also did 'Lovebirds' the same year where he sang a song with the international Bhangra-Rap star Apache Indian.

His music also received international recognition when his tracks were used on the BBC Clothes Show and other international fashion shows. He was invited to compose the theme music of the 1996 Cricket World Cup that was to be held in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Rahman accepted the offer but later backed out for unspecified reasons with some sources saying that he had quoted lack of sufficient time to do a befitting job. He also signed three films with Hollywood-Indian producer Ashok Amritraj, one film each in Tamil(Jeans), Hindi(Love You Hamesha) and English(Jungle Boy). He was also offered 'Kamasutra' by the Indian-American director Mira Nair and 'Fire' by Indian born Canadian director Deepa Mehta. He accepted only the latter. He would go on to do 'Earth' and 'Water' with Deepa Mehta, to complete her Elements trilogy. He later said in an interview that much as he wanted to work with Mira Nair he turned down Kamasutra because he did not want to be known internationally as the 'Kamasutra Boy'.

Reflecting on the runaway success of his rhythm based tunes, he says, " I had some golden rules when I started my first film, 'Roja'. These rules were - good lyrics, good thought, good melodies, good recording and good presentation. But I think Gentleman was to break the rule completely because Shankar wanted commercial music for the film to break the monotony of the serious subject. So we did it, and gave it full blast to them. Unfortunately the success of the rhythm-based compositions reached the masses much faster than normal 'Roja' type of music and the trend became an epidemic because it was easy and safe. I was pushed by producers to make similar kind of stuff. But rhythm-based compositions can be listened to only for a very short time, though we put in too much energy in polishing it. But later, I realised that the golden rules were going out of my hand. I think we are back to normal."

On the personal front, 1995 proved to be a momentous year for him. That year, on March 12, he got married to Saira Banu, sister-in-law of the Tamil actor Rahman and the daughter of a Madras based businessman.