Word: ratnam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hasn't forgotten those hand-to-mouth days: unlike many of his peers, Rahman pays his musicians on time and refuses to recycle earlier recordings, instead ordering fresh takes?and thereby creating more jobs?with each new score.) His big break came in 1992, when Madras-based director Mani Ratnam wanted a new sound for Roja, a film set in violence-ridden Kashmir. Kumar took the commission with one, unusual condition: he wanted to be credited using the Muslim name Allah Rakha Rahman. When Roja's soundtrack became a runaway success, A.R. Rahman was born...
...Rahman worked with Ratnam on two more movies but by then was already trying to cope with a flood of offers from Bombay, capital of the Hindi film industry. Lloyd Webber heard of him three years ago while dining with Bombay-based director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth and Bandit Queen) to discuss a screen version of The Phantom of the Opera. Kapur played a selection of Indian movie music to break the ice. According to Rahman, "Andrew would stop every now and then and ask, 'Who is this composer?' And every time he did that, it was me." Kapur called Rahman...
...Rahman's future projects include the film 1857: The Rising, a big-budget historical epic based on the Sepoy Mutiny and starring Aamir Khan and British actor Toby Stephens. Ratnam has also booked the composer for his latest production Yuva, which is set to be released later this year. Hollywood, too, has beckoned. Rahman won't reveal who has made offers, but says he turned them down, mainly out of trepidation. "Things work in a different way there," he says. "Even big composers get changed. I don't want to be in that mess...
...Rahman's lyrical prodigality was evident from the score for his first film: Mani Ratnam's Roja, the tale of a woman whose lover is kidnapped by terrorists. Through this grim political parable, Rahman laced some spectacular melodies that not only serve the drama, they create their own?as in the duet ballads Yeh Haseen Vadiyan and Roja Janeman, which first are grounded in recitative, then soar into celestial melody. The soundtrack parades the composer's gift for alchemizing outside influences until they are totally Tamil, totally Rahman. He plays with reggae and jungle rhythms, runs cool variations on Ennio...
...Western film cultists discovered India's pop cinema, they also found a master composer. If one song triggered Rahmania among non-Indians in the West, it was Chaiyya Chaiyya, from another Ratnam terrorist tragedy Dil Se. Shahrukh Khan stands atop a speeding train and (using the thrilling voice of Sukhwinder Singh) performs this update of a Sufi chant. It remains Rahman's most pulsing, irresistible piece, and when it opens the second act of Bombay Dreams, it has audiences stamping their feet and cheering...