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AR, by contrast, respects and is devoted to his craft, but he is as much in it for the unadulterated joy it gives him. In 2017, when someone asked what he does for fun, what he does when he wants to relax, to just unwind and calm down, AR immediately pointed to a keyboard nearby. ‘This,’ he said simply. ‘I have this. I don’t need anything else.’
Music, AR’s primary trade, is also his escape. It helps him forget the real world-and you can see that every time he begins playing the piano. When his fingers start to move across those black and white keys, he just closes his eyes, a look of absolute serenity appears on his face, and you know he’s not here any more.
One thing that AR probably has in common with his father though is his inability to hold on to anger. Shekhar was quick to forget anger and move on, much like his son. Even if someone messed up big time, he would eventually forgive them. He was generous and would always do whatever he could to help a struggling musician. He would ensure they got work, that they were paid.
The fact that Shekhar could never be as big as his son in India, let alone internationally, was due to no fault of his. The country, at the time, was just emerging from centuries of British rule. The economy was closed off to foreign influences in a bid to strengthen it and create an independent entity. The mindset of the people was more serious, with little time for frills; even entertainment was more about traditional dance and music and festivals. Films and film music, among other things, took a back seat in the days of young India. And fandom as a concept was virtually unheard of.
Furthermore, music just didn’t have the reach it does now. No cassettes, no CDs, certainly no YouTube or music streaming apps. Things simply took so much longer to spread, in a city, in a state, across the country. A person in Mumbai could not possibly know about the workings of a man in Chennai unless his work required him to be attuned to the South Indian music industry.
‘Rahman always talks about how talented [our father] was and how much he would have grown if he had some more time,’ AR’s elder sister Raihanah says. ‘And so many people benefited from him. He was so respected because he was really a good man.’
‘Maybe it’s the result of everything my dad did, all of his hard work, that I’m enjoying now,’ says AR. ‘All the good karma.’
Shekhar married Kasthuri (who would later change her name to Kareema Begum) in January 1965. She was the daughter of a foreman and a distant relative. They were married at Tirupathi’s Venkateshwara Temple, one of the most famous Hindu shrines in the world. She was sixteen and he was nearly twice her age. ‘It was a traditional arranged marriage,’ says Raihanah. The parents of the bride and the groom decided on the match based on the compatibility of their horoscopes and that was all there was to it.
The two of them were wed, and, as was expected of any good Indian couple, their children were born soon after, following each other in quick succession. Raihanah (born Kanchana) arrived on 9 September 1965, AR (born Dileep Kumar and, according to Kareema Begum, a source of great joy to his father) on 6 January 1967, Fathima Rafiq (born Bala) on 22 February 1970 and Ishrath Qadhre (born Rekha) on 1 June 1974.
The family was by no means wealthy, but they certainly weren’t poor. There was never a time they lacked food or basic necessities. As Fathima, who helms the management of KM Music Conservatory today, put it, ‘People now make it seem like we had no money at all when we were growing up. That’s not how it was. We didn’t have much, but we never begged on the streets. Not even after our dad died.’
She adds after a thoughtful pause, ‘Our childhood was a medley of experiences though. When we were growing up, on one side of our house you had this slum. And on the other side you had all these fancy houses. Our home was right in between. So we literally saw both sides of life. We had a few in-family squabbles; some relative would try to be dominating and all that. But that happens everywhere. Food and clothing, we never lacked.’
Shekhar and his wife originally lived with her parents in a little house they’d rented in Pudupet, on Chennai’s then Mount Road (Anna Salai today). This was where AR was born. A few months after their son’s birth, Shekhar bought a house on Habibullah Road, in Thyagaraya Nagar. It was a three-bedroom house made of concrete, says AR. The ceiling used to leak when it rained and water from the street would flood the place because it was built on low land. ‘We had to use every pot and pan that we owned to collect the rainwater,’ AR remembers.
Raihanah says, ‘My dad was a very busy man. He couldn’t come to drop me on my first day of school, for instance. Sometimes he would drop me off though and, whenever he did, I would be thrilled.’ Shekhar was always composing or singing. Always into music, making music. He used to listen to a lot of Western musicians as well as his own compositions.
Shekhar was also a very kind man, a generous soul and quite close to his wife’s parents. He was also very broadminded, almost unusually so for the times. ‘The fact that our mother’s parents were living with us was itself unusual,’ says Raihanah. ‘That sort of thing didn’t happen back then. But he allowed it. My grandmother, Sundarammal, was like a dear elder sister more than a mother-in-law to my dad; he was very close to her. Our grandfather was boisterous, and he would try speaking English which we would all find very funny. He had a very mechanical mind too. He could repair anything, and Rahman would always be watching him.’
