The article which appears below was originally published in Krishna Tiloks's book, Notes Of A Dream. ©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.
In early 1991, a gentleman named Raviprakash was working with Rajiv Menon and an ad agency called HTA (JWT today) on a commercial. Raviprakash is best known as an actor who has played prominent roles in films such as Mani Ratnam’s Alaipayuthey and Shankar’s Boys. But in the early 1990s he was the CEO of a TV-manufacturing company called Solidaire. The aforementioned commercial was for one of the company’s portable TVs. And the jingle for it was composed by the young AR.
‘When we were recording the jingle,’ says Raviprakash, ‘the first few times I heard it, I felt like something was missing. But Rahman would just keep smiling and winking at me and adding layers of music until it sounded perfect. He was just God-gifted.’
In any case, after the jingle was recorded, and the executives from HTA had left the studio, AR went to Raviprakash and said softly, ‘Hey, there’s something I want you to listen to.’
‘Sure,’ Ravi said. AR then played him a track.
‘I was bowled over when I heard it,’ Raviprakash recalls. He asked AR if it was a jingle for somebody else.
AR didn’t offer any explanation and just said, ‘Now listen to this . . .’
‘He played me another number and that was fantastic as well,’ says Ravi. ‘I told him, “Wow, man, you’ve gone into another league,” and asked him what this music was.’
Only then did AR tell him, ‘They’re songs for a film I’m doing. Mani Ratnam’s directing it and he’s asked me to do the music.’
