Born on the 6th of January 1966, A. R. Rahman (as the world knows him) was born to a musically affluent family as A. S. Dileep Kumar in Madras (now called Chennai), India. At the tender age of 9 his father passed away, and because of dire financial circumstances, at the young age of 11, he had to join Illayaraja’s orchestra as a keyboard player. Because of the various newfound responsibilities and work commitments he had, he had to drop out of school and toured the world with Illyria, and there began his public journey with music.
He also joined the tabla maestro Zakir Hussain in his world tours and gained more international experience. In this journey of music, A. R. Rahman won a scholarship at the revered Trinity College of Music in London and earned the prestigious graduation degree in Western Classical Music. By the year 1987, he was back in Chennai and went on to compose for over 500 ad jingles over a period of 5 years. With his slow but sure progress in his stint in the advertising world, by 1989 he started his own small recording studio called the Panchathan Recording Inn, which has now evolved into one of the most well-equipped and advanced recording studios in the world with the latest sound gadgets and mechanisms.
His journey in movies began with him meeting the famous director Mani Ratnam at an advertising awards ceremony, where the director heard a few of Rahman’s music samples and instantly wanted him to do the music for his film Roja in 1992. This was a groundbreaking change in the world of Indian music and in the life of A. R. Rahman and the rest as everyone knows is history.
Along the momentous journey of A. R. Rahman in the world of films, he became well-known for his milestone compositions in Tamil as well as Hindi movies like Rangeela and Bombay (1995), Tail (1999), Zubeidaa (2001), Lagaan (2001) and many more and of course in the recent times the famous international album for Slumdog Millionaire (2009) for which he won Grammys, Oscars and a lot of international acclaim.
Internationally, before Slumdog Millionaire, he also did many other projects of which the highlight was a musical called Bombay Dreams, for which he worked with Andrew Lloyd Weber and Shekhar Kapur (director of Oscar-winning Elizabeth 1998). In India too, he won many Regional as well as Hindi Filmfare awards, National Awards and Music Awards.
In his momentous journey until the age of 36, Rahman has achieved many laurels and is fondly known by many names including the Mozart of Madras and Isai Puyal. He is also called the John Williams of the Indian Music Industry. A deeply spiritual person, he turned to Sufi-ism when he was blessed by a peer baba from Islam, whom he credits his upswing and change of times to. In this respect, he quoted, “I’m a deeply spiritual person. Sufism is about love – love for a fellow human, love for all round humanity, and ultimately love for God. For me, it’s where music and religion meet – at dargahs, you will find qawwalis. That’s my inspiration.”
A prodigy, an achiever, a living musical legend, A. R. Rahman has and will continue to enthral and mesmerise the music lovers in the whole world with his musically genius talent and unforgettable compositions –
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