The soul of Slumdog is in its music

A. R. Rahman’s music in Slumdog Millionaire is unique in its blend of the folk and the modern,
says Shakuntala Rao

NO doubt director Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is one of the best films to have come out of Hollywood last year. The film is a sensory rush, a take on the terrible but darkly funny side of Mumbai’s Dharavi chawls. Vikas Swarup’s debut novel, Q&A, from which Slumdog Millionaire is loosely adapted, is far darker, quirkier, and understated. In Boyle’s hands, the story becomes more Bollywood-y, giddily bouncing from one horror to another in Jamal’s (played by debutant British actor Dev Patel) many unnerving misadventures. But what mesmerised was less the seductive visual style (which genuinely came to life in the hands of ace cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantel) as the music. Slumdog’s soul is in its music. The opening track, O...Saaya, I suspect, landed A. R. Rahman, the music director of Slumdog, his first Golden Globe award and I predict should also earn Rahman an Oscar.

This is not Rahman’s first foray into international music scene. His collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Weber on the Broadway musical, Bombay Dreams, is well documented. But Bombay Dreams received tepid reviews and could not garner the box-office draw or the critical buzz that Slumdog is currently generating. While his music for Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age also received critical attention, Slumdog is, for Rahman, charting new musical terrains.

It is apparent that both Boyle and Rahman wanted to bring to life musically a vast lush, sun-soaked, jam-packed ghetto, a kaleidoscope city of flimsy shacks and struggling humanity, to seamlessly project its thrills and tears. The answer is in O...Saaya.

In this track, Rahman is at his fiery best in serenading the rustic feel of the street-side hullabaloo of urban Mumbai. It conglomerates UK-based pop singer M.I.A. and Rahman’s vocals and bombastically thumped drumming with aerial shots to produce the race in which the characters of the film find themselves. The music is unique in its blend of old and modern India, giving viewers a sense of the film’s captive energy and emotions.

There are other tracks on the film’s album: Ringa Ringa (a clever musical homage to Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s 1993 hit song, Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai; Rahman even uses the same singers, Alka Yagnik and Ila Arun), East Meets West, Latika’s Theme, and Jai Ho, all of which combine to give the film its multicultural contemporary urban sound.

Rahman is one of those rare breed of composers (like Simon and Garfunkel’s melodic tunes for The Graduate, Eric Clapton’s score in Lethal Weapon, and Peter Gabriel’s instrumental compositions for The Last Temptation of Christ) who is both a popular musician and a composer. Many musicians say that composing for films gives them opportunity to be experimental. Never willing to anchor himself to any one genre, Rahman is the embodiment of experimental music.

Obviously, it has been a good year for Rahman in India, where he is expected to win all major music awards, with his exquisite compositions for films like Jodhaa Akbar, Yuvvraj, and Ghajini. With Slumdog, he is winning the international awards long overdue to him.