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AR Rahman composed the music for the Oscar-winning 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire. The movie’s iconic song “Jai Ho” earned him two Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song, along with numerous other honours. Interestingly, Rahman almost rejected the offer to compose the track based on his agent’s advice. In a recent interview, the music maestro recalled that his then-manager feared he might get fired, as director Danny Boyle was believed to have a reputation for discarding people’s work. However, Rahman revealed that he ultimately trusted his instincts, and the songs went on to be celebrated worldwide.
During the conversation with with Suchitra Tyagi at TIFF 2025, Rahman said, “Actually, what happened was my agent at that time said, ‘Don’t do this because you might get fired.’ I said, ‘Okay, nobody will know that I got fired if I don’t tell it out. So, I scored the movie and Danny was amazing. You have all the system around which confuses you. So, I went ahead with it and the result was great. It was actually a leap of faith and courage. Sometimes, people confuse you but you have to think what you have to do, what is right.”
AR Rahman then revealed that he kept the process hidden from his team. “I did it in secret. The team thought it was a documentary or something like that. It brought in a bigger international audience for me. In life, you get certain projects which are very blessed.”
When asked if he is a hard man to please, the music composer replied, “Please myself? Yes. I torture myself. I am not seeking validation. My validation which I seek is within myself. If I do something under my level, I feel guilty. I don’t sleep for many nights.”
He continued, “Sometimes, I have sleepless nights for a month, thinking about why I did something and how I should have done better. Even with mixing or anything else. I have trained a lot of people now so that even if I miss anything, they do the last checkup. The problem with life is that – the more you evolve, the more guilty you feel, the more you want to go deep in within your work.”
AR Rahman is currently working on Hansal Mehta’s upcoming show Gandhi. The series features Pratik Gandhi in the lead role.
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