Being A R Rahman: Musically yours

Mumbai: His music takes us to different places and makes people go totally emotional.

Music maestro A R Rahman, who recently launched the first ever English rendition Pray For Me Brother, sung by the prolific musical genius Rahman himself, says he is what he is today because of his mentor and guru Mani Ratnam.

“He just picked up the pearls and made a garland,” says Rahman about his relationship with Ratnam.

CNN-IBN’s Anuradha SenGupta caught up with A R Rahman and asked him about music, films, Mani Ratnam and Islam.

Anuradha SenGupta: We’ve heard for years now about how you like to work at night. What is it about the night that is appealing to you to work? Is it because it is quieter?

A R Rahman: Of course, it is quieter. Your mind rests and you concentrate better. When I was working in the studios, I would do other people's music during the day, and at night I used to compose my own commercials. So may be that practise of five or six years makes me think only in the night.

But now things have changed. It depends on the jetlag. I start at three in afternoon and finish all the outside sessions and do my own work probably late. Also I’m awake till 2:00 or 3:00 am, I can’t wake up for my morning prayers which is at 5:30 in the morning. So I prefer to be awake till then, finish it and then sleep.

Anuradha SenGupta: I don’t think you read the newspapers before you end your day?

A R Rahman: Sometimes I do. But all the time there’s news about disasters so it’s worth being with yourself.

Anuradha SenGupta: Do you think news is doing a disservice to people by giving information? You have strong views on this?

A R Rahman: Yes. The world has been like this before also and we have been hearing good things. Now the focus is more on sensational stuff and sometimes you see images that ate ghastly and disturb your mind.

Anuradha SenGupta: So do you feel we need to be more cautious as news people?

A R Rahman: Yes. I’ve found in the daily that I buy the most disturbing images and that paper is being read by children. And I asked myself how can a tender mind take that and then you see how it becomes cool to shoot somebody unfortunately.

It’s worrying to see children playing Play Station where there’s so much of killing and having fun with it. And when you have that kind of a future for children, I don’t know whether they will have any compassion when they grow up. I tried playing Play Station in which I hit a car and there was blood all over and that’s the last I played.

Anuradha SenGupta: Aren’t you running the risk of living in an unreal world if you shut yourself from all of that and then you may not be able to cope with the real world?

A R Rahman: I think the world is what we create. The more positivity we take, the more we can change it. I think as individuals we have the power to change it.

Anuradha SenGupta: That brings me to the song that you have just released recently - Pray For Me Brother. In that you use the word compassion.

A R Rahman: I think we need to have that in ourselves to create a better future. The song is in English mainly because to start a voice of our own we need to express our opinion in English and probably this is the start of it.

Anuradha SenGupta: You mention Sufism. Isn’t this thread of Islam related to creativity and creative people?

A R Rahman: The whole idea of life is love. And Sufism teaches love for God and his creatures. And music has something in it, which is inexplainable. We are all filled with information and sometimes facts and figures puts a screen on your divine knowledge inside.

I read a quote of Osho, which said that – “you use knowledge and switch it off whenever you don’t need it.” And I think it’s absolutely true. We need to hear our internal voice. We get carried away with intellect and information.

Anuradha SenGupta: Is there anything in Sufism that is unshackling of creativity? Would creative people be more inclined to adopting this belief?

A R Rahman: I’ve heard interviews of Hans Zimmer also. He is one of the most successful composers in Hollywood and he says that every time I sit on the keyboard, I realise how much I don’t know, and get insecure. That’s the same feeling I have. I don’t think a piece of art or melody comes from us. It comes from the divine and we need to have a state of mind for it and be ready for it so that you can grab it. If you’re not, then the music is not true music.

Anuradha SenGupta: Do you think all your work is like this?

A R Rahman: I try to. Some of them you know is not. Sometimes you try and do something intelligent and you know it’s noisy.

Anuradha SenGupta: I find a few things about you contradictory. On the one hand you have composed songs that are sublime, takes you to another realm and then there are songs which are raunchy, off-the-earth and sensual. There are two different sides to a human being isn’t?

A R Rahman: We have to cater to large audience. We have categories A, B, C. When Roja was released I asked different people which song they liked and most of them said Rukmini Rukmini. Though melody lovers said it was Roja Janeman. If you want a large number of people to watch the film, we need to cater to everyone. At the same time there are standards below, which we cannot go.

Anuradha SenGupta: Don’t those songs appeal to you? Chikamma from Meenakshi is fantastic.

A R Rahman: Yes, I like it.

Anuradha SenGupta: So it’s not just because you have to cater to a wide spectrum, you can move between these two realms is what I am asking you.

A R Rahman: I think my experience with the Telugu film industry has given the dance aspect to my composition. The influence comes from me having worked for a composer called Raj-Koti where everyday there was a new Bhangra song.

Anuradha SenGupta: But both these genres of songs lead you to shed you inhibitions – either on the dance floor or with God. And I find that you bridge that gap.

If I were to make a list of my favourite A R Rahman songs, almost all of them would have been sung by Rahman. It began for me with Dil Se and now the Swades one is giving it a lot of competition. Are you using your voice more these days? Even Zikr from Bose – The Forgotten Hero.

A R Rahman: I’m happy somebody has heard that. Well I want to. As an expression when you sing your own song, it’s an expression of “I want that to be my expression. I don’t want to be fake.” But recently I thought I have been putting too many conditions on myself and I let it go. Therefore I sang Tere Bina.

Anuradha SenGupta: In Swades, you used the Shenai for the song Yeh Jo Desh Hai Tera?

A R Rahman: Yes. I was doing the song in UK. I was working for a lot of events and I took permission , a day off, and I was looking at the trains go from the windows that why I think it’s got so much of feeling.

Anuradha SenGupta: You were actually longing for desh?

A R Rahman: Yes. Coming back home.

Anuradha SenGupta: Though Indians revere the sound of Shenai because of the marriage celebrations, but the first time I connected with the sound was in this song.

A R Rahman: Me too I think. Sometimes it just happens.

Anuradha SenGupta: Another contradiction in you is that people who have worked with you have said that you have somehow managed to maintain an almost childlike, uncorruptible quality and yet the contradiction is that you are very rooted, you conduct and manage your own business, you are person who understands the concept of copyright and publishing right.

A R Rahman: It is a very good observation. I know some classical singers who don’t care about the world and money. If they sing for two hours in the morning, they feel they have attained mukti.

Anuradha SenGupta: You have heard of Bismillah Khan.

A R Rahman: Exactly. But once in film business, if you’re like that, then you get conned. But you also need to maintain your sanity. It’s a switch on and switch off mode.

Anuradha SenGupta: This is a man who makes music which makes people go totally emotional.

A R Rahman: We also have to take care of yourself because now I am a father and I have to get into those roles.

Anuradha SenGupta: When we are trying to find out what’s it’s like being A R Rahman, it’s not possible that we don’t mention Mani Ratnam because I heard that you said somewhere that Mani Ratnam and A R Rahman are first love. Has he directed who you are today as composer?

A R Rahman: Definitely. I was doing all kinds of stuff. He just picked up the pearls and made a garland.

Anuradha SenGupta: He directed you?

A R Rahman: In a sense we can say that. He selected the best songs for Roja and then I had something to start with and I had only go further.

Anuradha SenGupta: Is he your mentor?

A R Rahman: Yes, I would say so.

Anuradha SenGupta: Today when you work with directors with who you connect, like for Ashutosh Gowarikar, with whom you have done fabulous work, Rakeysh Mehra in Rang De Basanti, and all of them come to you with their projects and so does Mani Sir, does he get preference?

A R Rahman: Timewise, I think I am okay. I don’t have many films.

Anuradha SenGupta: So there’s no question…

A R Rahman: They understand that we can’t have a song on March 10 when we ask A R for it on March 1. So they also evolve with some music. Sometimes I take three months and sometimes if the heroine is getting married or something, I have to finish it quickly.

Anuradha SenGupta: Can you work under pressure like that?

A R Rahman: Well strangely, we did a song on old lyric and retuned it and people loved it.

Anuradha SenGupta: Kandukondain Kandukondain is again an all-time favourite track. I know you said music has no language barriers. Shankar Mahadevan was telling me how if he goes to Hubli and he will sing Yeh Lo… and people will go crazy. But they don’t relate Kajra Re, but he comes up to the north and they relate to Kajra Re and have never heard of the Tabu and Ajith song, Enna Solla Pogirai. He said only elitists have heard that.

A R Rahman: There were a lot of complaints when I did my first concert for the Bharti Vidya Bhawan in New York. They said, ‘you sing a lot of Tamil songs’. But Tamil people were pretty cool with Hindi songs. Then as couple of concerts went by, we increased production and the time we were wasting on stage. They were absolutely fine. So now I pull off singing Tamil, Telugu and Hindi in all my concerts and people sit and watch. It’s an example of integration.

Anuradha SenGupta: You want to put Chinese too?

A R Rahman: I tried, but could not do that.

Anuradha SenGupta: What would you normally have been doing if I wasn’t sitting here.

A R Rahman: Actually I must be sleeping. I haven’t slept for two days. This is almost a software but I am just finding ways how not to go to the computer and do music in a different way.

Anuradha SenGupta: What does that mean?

A R Rahman: Since the computer came into picture we could get all the stuff all the programming audio into one thing. It's good for transferring and all other stuff.

Anuradha SenGupta: And you can record differently and put it all together?

A R Rahman: I think there is also another way of doing music.

Anuradha SenGupta: That’s the old fashion way, isn’t it?

A R Rahman: Yes, exactly. You think hard to make a tune. If you have a typewriter you think hard what you are writing. You are typing some gibberish and then you are deleting, so your mind is not thinking hard. So I am just thinking of going the old way little bit.

Anuradha SenGupta: The Nobel peace laureate Mohammad Yunus said that if you have a name with Mohammed in it and I am quoting him - “you are in trouble and people look at you differently. Suddenly all Muslims become suspect. Luckily the Nobel prize committee did not think in that way”.

Do you feel this gap which we have seen in the last four or five years between the Muslim world and the Christian world or the western world, do you see it getting wider and wider?

A R Rahman: There is always a divide in the human community. When Indira Gandhi was shot, the Sikh community was scrutinised and you know what happened to the Jews and now it’s the time for the Muslims. So I think it’s a temporary phase.

And the Tamils, I am both Tamil and Muslim, so speaking Tamil – people say are you Sri Lankan LTTE or are you a Muslim. But it depends how you take life and what you do which changes things. That’s what I hope; I aspire things happen in their way in future.

Anuradha SenGupta: When you are not working on music what is it that A R Rahman does?

A R Rahman: This is a notion I mean how can you just go to another version. There is not enough lifetime to go into this and how can you just go into something else?

Anuradha SenGupta: No, but how do you unwind because this is also your work?

A R Rahman: There is no unwinding, this is unwinding. When you write a piece of music the satisfaction that it gives can’t be equitable with anything else.

Anuradha SenGupta: So this is not work.

A R Rahman: This is not work, I don’t think it as work. When I think of it as work it shows and you wouldn’t like my music then.

Anuradha SenGupta: Well, we hope that you continue to enjoy what you are doing because I don’t need to articulate just the kind of emotions your music manages to evoke, the places where it takes us and the people it sometimes makes us become. So we hope you remain blessed and we hope that you keep making beautiful music.

Thank you very much.

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