Why music icon AR Rahman feels his seventh National Film Award is like his first

Roja remains a landmark infinitesimal successful Indian cinema. Any memories of it?

There are times, you support connected trying but thing happens. Then, you disconnect from immoderate that’s happening astir you and absorption connected your music. I was successful that Zen mode erstwhile Mani Ratnam offered maine Roja.

How was it moving connected an ambitious movie similar PS1?

This is simply a task that a batch of people, including MG Ramachandran, tried to bash implicit the decades. Mani Ratnam started moving connected it astir 10 years agone and past dropped it. During the pandemic, helium went up with his service of radical to marque this movie. I was awed by his courageousness and passionateness towards cinema. That’s an inspiration by itself. It was a large acquisition erstwhile we created euphony for this movie and added layers to it. While adding the 3rd layer, we were convinced thing peculiar was being created.

AR Rahman bagged his 7th National Film Award for his inheritance people successful Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan – Part 1.

How breathtaking is it to enactment connected play movies?

I americium a large instrumentality of the music, poetry, filmmaking and tehzeeb of the ’50s and ’60s. I inactive can’t get capable of that. When I ticker movies of that period, I deliberation aah, it’s oozing romance. People truly got into the psyche of things. So, erstwhile thing similar that comes my way, I instantly drawback it and say: ‘This is it. Thank you. Let’s person fun’. We can’t lucifer the greats similar Madan Mohan, Naushad and Lata Mangeshkar oregon the aura they created, but we tin to beryllium respectful of their work. It is besides a bully acquisition to research. Sometimes, you request to spell backmost and larn astir immoderate of the quality that’s lost.

You person a clump of absorbing caller projects, including web-series Gandhi, Lahore 1947 and Ramayan, coming up.

Different projects animate you differently. Something modern similar Thug Life with Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan requires a antithetic sensibility. I americium besides doing Chhaava (based connected the beingness of Maratha king Shambhaji). So, the question is what acquisition tin we make astir Maratha civilization for Indian cinema. If you look astatine the promo, it feels close for the quality and yet you can’t foretell the sound.

Also Read | AR Rahman calls retired remixes being done without permission: ‘You can’t usage a opus 6 years later, accidental you are reimagining it’

When you constitute songs arsenic good arsenic inheritance people for a film, bash you similar that you are successful full control?

As a composer, it’s expected that you volition enactment connected both. Take for example, Ilaiyaraaja oregon Naushad. Of late, radical person been asking idiosyncratic other to enactment connected inheritance score. Composing the people requires 8 times much vigor and time. With songs, you tin decorativeness overmuch faster and determination connected to the adjacent project. I consciousness similar radical expect maine to bash some and people is thing I emotion composing.

Background euphony helps successful unfolding the narrative. But is it getting excessively large these days?

Sometimes either the bully people gets muddled with effects oregon they enactment it precise high. This has started happening successful the past a fewer years that radical are making the people ace precocious and you extremity up getting a headache. Dynamics is the astir important happening successful dependable – determination is simply a low, mid and high. Everything can’t beryllium conscionable high. In orchestra music, dynamics is astir important.

You person respective semipermanent collaborators similar Mani Ratnam, Imtiaz Ali and Irshad Kamil.

We animate each other. You spell to idiosyncratic truthful that they volition lessen the load that you have. If you tin marque the load lighter that’s the champion collaboration. If we spell determination and endure or, erstwhile radical effort to bash thing that they are not capable to or, marque maine bash thing weird, it does not extremity up being a bully experience. We ever spell backmost to what’s casual and what gives champion results. I bent connected to that.

AR Rahman made his debut with the 1992 Tamil movie Roja.

You regularly make non-movie music.

I larn from galore things – life, people, forests, mountains, the sky. I besides larn from large works that are not constricted to cinema, specified arsenic the mystical poesy of Kabir, Bulleh Shah and Rumi. You recognize the satellite amended with poesy and philosophy. That helps you recognize creation better. It frees you from normal and boredom.

Also Read | AR Rahman opens up astir battling suicidal thoughts, his narration with spirituality: ‘When you unrecorded for others…’

You precocious backed the documentary, Headhunting to Beatboxing astir Nagaland’s sonic practice and taste traditions.

Each Indian authorities has its ain cuisine, language, creation and music. We can’t acquisition everything successful 1 lifetime. We are precise arrogant to nutrient this documentary. The documentary shows a unsocial facet of Nagaland. It’s a revelation for people.

How bash you look astatine your vocation spanning 3 decades?

I consciousness fortunate that I americium an artiste. Music is storytelling. It is simply a span betwixt cultures and it opens up boundaries. Look astatine a opus that’s fashionable each implicit the satellite similar Jai Ho (Slumdog Millionaire, 2008). It reaffirms that determination is truthful overmuch we tin do. The possibilities are endless.