Rahman remains a mystery

The legendary music composer A. R. Rahman remains a mystery even to those who have a couple of decade’s association with him. Indeed. Southern filmmaker Mani Ratnam who Ratnam introduced AR Rahman in his 1992 Tamil romantic-drama Roja and has since used him as composer in all his films, still hasn’t figured out quite how the Mozart of Madras works.

Mani Ratnam says, “In my 20 years of association with Rahman, I still haven’t figured out how he works because he is full of surprises. For ‘Kadal’, he composed a song a called Moongil thottam when I was out of town. He made me listen to the song after I returned and I was stunned.” He further added, “Sometimes he has played few compositions to me which he claims to have composed on flight. I wonder how did even manage to compose a tune on flight with no instruments.”