A. R. Rahman Quotes

An ideal world can definitely be created with a pure mind and optimistic results.

It needs a lot of courage to pick up someone from another country and support him. When I first heard from Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1999, he praised my work. But I must say that choosing me over others to compose for Bombay Dreams was a brave decision.

Commended, multi-talented and innovative Rahman for bringing East and West closer through music and for making the world look at Indian film music more seriously. Diversity of his styles and themes was appealing to different sections of the society.

In my case, dust has become gold: Today, I work with people I grew up admiring. But, internally, I am the same person I always was. Ever since I embraced Sufism, I have learnt to separate myself from my desires and my success. Now, I can distance myself from all the adulation showered on me.

I wanted to produce film songs that go beyond language or culture.

Musical theater had become very predictable. I think Andrew felt that Bollywood musicals could be a new treat for the Western audience.

The trend in the north is more Punjabi folk and simple music. But, in the past, people like Naushad experimented with Hindustani classical music which I think has been completely forgotten. People don't experiment anymore and think that Hindustani classical music won't work. For me, coming from the south, it was just a little step to learn Punjabi music. The nuances are louder in Punjabi music. Songs like Mukkala muqqabla or Humma humma had more of the Tamil folk music in it.

I've always told him, a composer is someone who composes soulful music. There are some of A.R.'s songs that have made me very emotional and I have cried. It is something that he creates from within.

May he win such an award every year. He is a genius. Rahman's music is a blend of a little South Indian music and what we commonly call Hindi film music.

I never exert pressure on my children: I encourage the children, Katija and Rahima, to pursue their dreams. Rahima is embarrassed by autograph-seekers and doesn't want me to visit her school. In fact, I have never attended a single PTA meeting or gone to pick up the report cards of my children.

I think musicians here [India] get ripped off. Music production houses take good care of artists abroad and though the upfront signing amount is much less than what I get here, the royalty takes care of future returns.

The billboard outside the Broadway Theatre reads, A R RAHMAN'S BOMBAY DREAMS. That name may mean little to musical-theater devotees, but in the rest of the world it's golden. Like Gershwin or Lennon-McCartney, the name stands for melody, quality, energy, instant hummability — a sound both personal and universal, devouring many older forms and transforming them into something gorgeously new.

I had been doing the same kind of stuff for 15-16 years and was desperately seeking a change. But there was no opportunity to reinterpret Indian music. With Roja, we wanted to strike a new note. Mani's amazing visuals, Mutthu's romantic lyrics, relatively unknown singers... we wanted to impart to Roja an international flavour — and we succeeded.

He works less but he has given Indian music a completely different sound which has worked.

In India, a country of a billion inhabitants, where film and pop music are one, A.R. Rahman, 43, dominates the music industry so totally that he has supplied the sound track for a whole generation. He enjoys the godlike devotion of India's youth, but everyone from the street child who sweeps train platforms to the middle-aged doctor in Mumbai's posh Malabar Hill hums his tune.