The mystique of A R Rahman

His originality and ground-breaking innovations have changed the sound of music in Indian films. Derek Bose on the unorthodox and enigmatic genius

Songwriter Sameer is yet to get over his first meeting with A.R. Rahman in 2002. It was for the music recording of the film, The Legend of Bhagat Singh. Rajkumar Santoshi was its director and Ramesh Taurani, the producer. They all had taken a late-night flight to Chennai and driven straight to Rahman’s house from the airport – only to discover that the maestro was busy at another location.

"The location turned out to be a tiny maqbara in the middle of nowhere," narrates Sameer. "In the stillness of night, amid flickering oil lamps, lighted candles and incense smoke, there was Rahman, all alone with his synthesiser, composing music. There was not a soul in sight. In this spooky atmosphere, we hurriedly made a selection of nine to 10 tunes. By the first available flight next morning, we were back in Mumbai."

However bizarre or exaggerated this anecdote may sound, there is some truth in it. "It is a fact that Rahman works by night," says Madhushree, who has been singing for the composer ever since her ‘Kabhi neem neem’ number for Yuva became a hit in 2004. "He does not compose during the day. He has a special place in his bungalow-cum-studio where he composes the first notes of every song he takes up. Nobody is allowed in there when he composes as he is supposed to be in communion with a higher power. For him, the process of making music is an act of prayer. With aromatic candles and joss sticks burning, it looks like a place of worship. I do not know of any music composer who works like him."

For Bollywood, accustomed to working in anarchic conditions, Rahman has always stood out as an enigma. Everybody recognises his prodigious talent, but that has not stopped the jibes and jokes targeted at him. He is made out to be an eccentric, an oddball with peculiar quirks, an idiosyncratic genius, a recluse nobody can befriend. Nobody seems to know who the real Rahman is. That he is painfully media shy and operates out of Chennai has all the more added to the myth and aura about him.

"But nobody can deny the fact that he is the ultimate master of sound," says Sameer. "Rahman is not only his own composer, he writes his notations, arranges the music, balances the sound levels, does the mixing himself and produces the final recording. There is nothing he does not know about technology. From start to finish, he is involved in every aspect of sound design and audiography."

So who is the real A.R. Rahman?

Here, it is necessary to separate fact from fiction. A.R. Rahman is the name A.S. Dileep Kumar adopted at the age of 21 (and not at nine years as is generally believed) when he embraced Islam in 1988. When he was nine, he lost his father R.K. Sekhar — a fairly successful composer, arranger and conductor of music for Malayalam movies — and the responsibility of looking after the family of three sisters and mother Kasthuri (later Kareema Begum) fell on him. The urge to convert to Islam was at the instance of a Muslim mystic, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani or Pir Qadri, whose framed photographs adorn the walls of his Kodambakkam house even today. Bollywood music wizard and close family friend, Naushad Ali, named him Allah Rakha Rahman.

The other established facts about his career are: learning to play the harmonium at the age of four, early apprenticeship under Dhanraj Master, assisting southern composer Illaiyaraja as a keyboard player since age 11, playing on the orchestra of M.S. Vishwanathan, accompanying tabla maestro Zakir Hussain on his world tours and performing with local rock bands like Roots, Magic and Nemesis Avenue. He is a school dropout but has a diploma in western classical music from the Trinity College, Oxford University. Somewhere along the way, he slipped into advertising and in five years composed around 300 radio and television jingles. It was in 1991while collecting an award for a jingle of a well-known coffee brand that he met filmmaker Mani Ratnam. A year later Roja created history.

The nation woke up to a new kind of music that went beyond the fusion of Indian melody and western beats that Rahul Dev Burman and Bappi Lahiri had been trying to achieve. There was refinement in the integration of electro-pop, dancehall rhythms, Latin melodies, Hindustani, Carnatic and even Pahari folk and Bengali baul. This was no arbitrary collage of incompatible harmonies. It was the work of a master, completely in command of his craft. And this guy has just celebrated his 25^th birthday.

Many who expected Roja to be a flash in the pan were disappointed. Rahman signed six films in 1993 and another nine in 1994, including blockbusters like Thiruda Thiruda, Pudhiya Mannargal and Gentleman. Bombay and Rangeela happened in 1995, closely followed by Dil Se, 1947 Earth, Taal, Zubeida, Lagaan, Meenaxi: Tale of 3 Cities, Yuva, Rang De Basanti, Provoked, Guru`85 In 16 years, Rahman has done 108 films (not counting dubbed versions), averaging seven films to a year.

One by one, many Bollywood old-timers were being put out of business. They were all hoping that a composer, who did not understand, let alone speak a sentence, clearly in Hindi, would not be able to hold his own in Bollywood. And sooner than later, they would see his back. But when Sony Music signed Rahman for a three-year contract in 1998, recognition began pouring in like never before. The Padma Shri in 2000, three national awards and 14 Filmfare awards, including for Rangeela, Kadhal Desam, Minsara Kanavu, Dil Se and Taal, they had to come to terms with a phenomenon called Rahman. There have been also the awards from Mauritius and Malaysian Governments, the Sanskriti Award, Rajiv Gandhi Award, Lata Mangeshkar Award and so on, besides collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michael Jackson and David Byrne.

True, Rahman is weak in Hindi and it would, therefore, seem a miracle that he is able to capture the emotion of lyrics that he does not clearly understand. The trick he employs here is two-fold: one, he never gets into an argument over ‘meanings’ of a song (something, inconceivable with most Bollywood tunesmiths) and accepts the lyricist’s word as final; and two, he brooks no interference from any quarter on the technical detailing of any score he composes. More importantly, he leaves no scope for trial-and-error, because every tune is tailored to pre-written lyrics. With other composers, it is usually the other way around.

Still, Rahman had to face a lot of flak from time to time. From being repetitive to even funding an extremist group, Rahman has heard it all. The charges have been predictable that he is still a jingle composer, is more at home with western music than Indian ragas, his hip-hop scores leave little scope for good lyrics, over-dependence on technical gadgetry and excessive use of singers ignorant about the nuances of language

On the other hand, he has been credited for raising the bar for Indian film music by bringing about changes on many key fronts:

• Consistently introducing new singing talent, from Suresh Peters and Shahul Hameed, to Aslam Mustafa, Sreenivas, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Harini, Minmini, Sujatha Mohan, Nithyashree, Noell James (his secretary) and Madhushree.

• Only composer to credit his entire team of rhythm programmers and instrumentalists on the inlay card of his albums.

• Only composer who insists on being paid a royalty rather than a lumpsum fee for an assignment.

• First Indian music maestro to go truly international when his Vande Mataram was released simultaneously in 28 countries in 1997 under the Columbia label.

In balance, it becomes abundantly clear that no other Indian composer can match the stature this 41-year-old master enjoys in contemporary film music. With all his quirks and kinks, reticence and humility, the spiritual fixation and hunger for perfection, he stands tall in the community of world music greats. Today, if Bollywood can dream of going global, the reason, to a large extent, is this mystic minstrel called A.R. Rahman.