Ulaga Naayaganae!

As a rule, I generally avoid writing on stuff that everyone talks about. There are eleventy-eleven thousand blogs around the world, and all bloggers have views on everything contemporary. These days, owning a blog is equivalent to having views.

But am giving myself a concession this one time. This post is all about A R Rahman.

Earlier I used to think it was my own idiosyncrasy, but learnt sometime back that almost everyone feels this - A R Rahman is like someone you know so closely well. It's like he is a personal friend. And most people from my peer group feel this way. It's like everyone feels a sense of 'ownership' over him. It could be cos' of his Herculean modesty.

Or may also be cos he 'grew' with us.

I remember the day he won the National Award for Roja. Rather, the day the awards function was held and telecast on Doordarshan. I had spent just more than half-a-dozen years on earth then. But the diminutive kid who scored the music for Roja caught my fancy right then. Notwithstanding the high fever I was running then, I rushed to my cousin's house in Tirupattur to watch the show.

Just a couple of more years in Kollywood.. and he rose to stardom in Tamil Nadu.

And that was when Rangeela happened. I remember the trailers that were aired on DD Metro. They bore the words "A R Rahman's first original score in Hindi". And thus began Rahman's foray into the national scene. A few years hence 1997 happened. Vande Mataram happened. And Rahman became a son of India.

That was a problem of sorts for Tams. Cos he had to start sharing his time between Tamil and Hindi movies :( Anyway, that brought about a wave of awareness about Bollywood in the south. People in TN started singing Hindi songs to an unprecedented level (after Aradhana). And vice versa too - all my peers at IIMB from the north love Boys songs ("Woh girlfriend waali gaana..").

A few years went on like that, and Andrew Lloyd Webber (& Bombay Dreams) happened, signalling Rahman's entry into the global scene. Pride on one side, and jealousy on the other side, pulled me apart then. While happy that Rahman was making us all proud, I was upset that we would be hearing even lesser of him in Kollywood.

Anyway, I put up with that too. Kid can be given some freedom to move around on his own.

And now, Slumdog has happened. Sigh :(

Well yeah.. It's great that he (among others) is getting the world to look at us.

But I would have been much happier had this happened for one of his actually good movies. I found the music of Slumdog pretty average-ish, considering that it was from Rahman. (The O Saya bit is definitely haunting. But howmuch ever I listen to Jai Ho, I always end up finding it inadequate.)

Anyway, this is no time to crib. Namma paya gelichurukaan.. takkar matteru baa!

(Again going tangential, don't you think Rahman and Sachin have some uncanny resemblance? Behaviour, Stature - physical and otherwise, et al?)