The article which appears below, was originally published on Desi Pundit in February 2009. ©The rights to this material are reserved to the owner. If you have any concerns or comments, please send an email to info@rahmaniac.com.
As expected, A.R. Rahman won the most prestigious film award in the globe. As expected, he thanked his mother (“Mere paas maa hai,” he joked, invoking a line from Deewar that, unfortunately, no one in the audience understood), all his musicians from Chennai and Mumbai, and above all, God. This is the first time Tamil was spoken on the Oscar stage (“Ella pugazhum iraivan oruvanukke,” Rahman said, meaning that all praise goes to the Almighty). This is the first time an Indian won two Oscars. So it would all seem to add up to something big.
But the victory of Slumdog Millionaire is just a flash in the pan, a sweet little feel-good moment and nothing else. As several people have pointed out, it’s first and foremost a British film, not an Indian film, and among the reasons for its success are that it followed the Hollywood model of storytelling, familiar to audiences worldwide. (The Bollywood elements were merely spicy gravy.)
So the grand night at the Oscars doesn’t imply that Mumbai will have to gear up for an avalanche of production crews from other parts of the globe. There’s Gandhi as a precedent. It won eight Oscars – and what happened? It was nearly three decades before Danny Boyle landed up with his crew and told a story about India.
Slumdog Millionaire will go down in Oscar history as a kind of Rocky, a film that was hugely loved during its time and now remembered mainly as the film that put Sylvester Stallone on the map. And the person put on the map, this time, is A.R. Rahman. He may find doors opening to him in Hollywood.
But it is still the traditional symphonic score that drives most of Hollywood, so it is important that Rahman capitalise on his win and bag a few “non-exotic” projects, so that he doesn’t become the go-to guy only when a “Bollywood-style” Jai Ho number is needed. (This isn’t to say that Rahman should reject any such offers, but he should also look out for projects that allow him to stretch.)
But all that can wait. Let’s just savour his win for now. This is a moment that’s not likely to be repeated, at least not via projects made within the country. The wise minds that submit films for Oscar consideration (in the foreign film category) always manage to pick movies that underwhelm, so even that solitary Oscar doesn’t look likely. And this only makes Rahman’s double win so special – a global recognition for a truly global musician.
