Written by: Dipti Nagpaul D'souza
3 min readApr 8, 2011 12:43 AM IST
First published on: Apr 8, 2011 at 12:43 AM IST
A new biography of music maestro AR Rahman unfolds as a series of conversations with author Nasreen Munni Kabir
He is known to be a man of few words and that,according to many,was reason enough for Nasreen Munni Kabeer to give up her attempts at chronicling AR Rahman’s life. “But I realised that he isn’t shy,only a bit reserved. He talks if he knows that the conversation is going to be worth his while,” recounted the author of the music maestro’s authorised biography,AR Rahman — The Spirit of Music. The book was launched on Wednesday at Novotel in Juhu,Mumbai. Published by Om Books Prakashan,the biography,which has been written in a conversational format,was unveiled by Rahman’s “mentor”,filmmaker Mani Ratnam.
Recalling his first encounter with the musician,Ratnam said,“I met him at a social gathering and he invited me to his studio. I went after a few months and it was nothing like the big,equipped studios that I’m used to. It was a small room at the back of his house with his equipment and a swing,which many of us have since sat on.”
The director,who later launched Rahman as a film music composer in Roja,admits that he was so struck by the brilliance of the compositions he heard that he doubted their authenticity. “I couldn’t believe that such beautiful music was being produced by the equipment I was seeing. I played the scratches over and over again,looking for a possible flaw,but couldn’t point out a single one. Ever since then,I’ve been a fan of AR Rahman,the music composer,but I’m a bigger fan of AR Rahman,the person.”
After that encounter,Rahman went on to compose the music for each of Ratnam’s films.
However,Ratnam was not the only “mentor” in attendance at the launch. The Academy as well as Grammy Award-winning musician also thanked Subhash Ghai “for teaching the nuances of Bollywood music” and Ashutosh Gowariker “who taught me how to spell Oscars”. Also present were his film industry friends like directors Ram Gopal Varma — who gave him his break in Bollywood — Imtiaz Ali and Anthony D’Souza,lyricist Javed Akhtar and percussionist Sivamani.
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