AR Rahman Recounts How A Drunk Guitarist's Remark On His Music Took Him 7 Years To Recover: My Mental Journey...

Academy award winning music director and composer made his debut with the Mani Ratnam's film Roja in 1992. He then went on to establish his dominance in the Indian film music with albums including Bombay, Kadhalan, Dil Se, Taal and Lagaan. AR Rahman recently revealed a little incident from his early years and how that one thing affected him for long period of time.

AR Rahman shares an incident from his early days in career

In an interaction with O2 India, AR Rahman revealed how a remark made by a drunken guitarist in his band during the mid-1980s led him to transform his music and discover his unique style.

He said, “I went through a phase where I was playing for a couple of composers and I was in a band. This one time, when I was young, the guitarist in the band was drunk and he turned to me and said, ‘What are you playing? You are playing film music’. He made a very condescending comment about my playing”.

It took a very long time for AR Rahman to recover from the impact. He said, “At the moment, I didn’t realise what he meant, but weeks later, it hit me and I realised that whatever he said was right. When I thought deeply about his remark about me, I realised that I was getting influenced by the composers I was playing for. After this, I consciously began to move away from it. And my mental journey of identifying ‘what will be my style’ began.”

“It took me about seven years, and I completely moved away from the influences…Sometimes, certain remarks imprint in your heart so much that it becomes a positive influence to move away from that stuff. This helped me learn to move away from my own influence… I revive the soul of my music but move away from the packaging”, AR Rahman said.

AR Rahman’s rise to stardom

The film Rangeela broke all myths and misconceptions about AR Rahman in Bollywood. Rangeela opened new doors for AR Rahman. In the next four years, AR Rahman delivered two more pan-India superhit albums for the movies Dil Se and Taal in the years 1998 and 1999 respectively. And in 2001, The composer achieved global fame and recognition as he composed for the Oscar-nominated film Lagaan.

From Lagaan onwards, Rahman only grew in a global status and popularity. However, it all arguably started because a filmmaker in Bombay decided to sign AR Rahman against all odds, back in 1994.