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.
Vijay Modi is one of AR’s closest and oldest friends. The man used to run a post-production studio in Chennai and was a big name back in his day. When he was a boy, he used to work in Gemini Studios serving refreshments to all those who came to shoot at the studio. He was a chai-wallah. He confesses that he did vaguely give thought to becoming an actor, but gave up on that aspiration after a cameraman said to him, “Modi, if you stand in front of a camera, the bloody lens will split in two.”
“That was a pretty tough way to be told to piss off,” he recalls.
After Gemini Studios collapsed in the wake of a string of big-budget movies that were massive flops, studio employees were laid off and Modi found himself without a job. A distant relative of his who had also been working at the studio and now had no work said to him, “Listen, you’re jobless like the rest of us now. This is our chance to really do something. Are you up for it?”
What they did was set up a post-production studio by the name of Audiovision. It soon grew to become one of the most popular places in Chennai, if not the country, for the specialized post-production facilities it offered. The makers of television commercials and documentaries and videos came there to record jingles, dub and edit.
Vijay Modi is a good-humoured, large-hearted gentleman, one of the most dynamic and enterprising human beings you will ever meet. He filled his studio with the best equipment he could get, not just so that it would improve his turnover, but also because he wanted the people coming to him to have the best in terms of tech and experiences. Several ad film-makers recall times when they would be working at “Vijay’s place” well past midnight and the man would walk in with tea and snacks for everybody. No one quite managed to figure out where he got those refreshments for all of them at that hour. But Vijay knew these advertising professionals were working hard, doing whatever it took, and he wanted to help them out in whatever way he could.
Today, Vijay Modi is in his late sixties and lives in Bengaluru with his wife after retiring and selling off his studio. One of his two sons, Aditya Modi, works extensively with Rahman as director of sound for his projects.
When you ask Vijay Modi how he is, he says, “Man, I’ve had two open-heart surgeries, now I have four blocks, the doctor says: we can’t operate any more, go live your life to the fullest and have one stiff drink every night. And that’s just what I’m doing.” The man is full of energy and still insists on working. He is currently helping with the remastering of old film music. “You can either die while you work or you can let your work die on you,” he says. “And for me, that’s no choice at all.”
Back in the day, Vijay Modi, after his studio was up and running, also became a producer of ad films. And that was how he encountered the young Rahman for the first time.
“I needed a keyboardist for a jingle,” he recalls. “For some reason, all the usual guys who played for me were unavailable right then and someone suggested I try this kid who was playing for Ilayaraja at the time. I said I won’t be paying the fellow any more than I would for my regular guys. The man who made the suggestion said that the boy wouldn’t charge much. And that’s how I met him. He came in, played what he was told to and then we sent him on his way. We paid him a hundred and fifty rupees, plus another thirty for his rickshaw fare. Yeah, you can laugh if you want.”
As Rahman’s stature as a composer of jingles grew, he used to visit Vijay Modi’s Audiovision quite often. Panchathan did not yet exist, so he would come there to record.
“I think he enjoyed it,” Vijay Modi says. “Especially when he saw his work going out to TV and all that, it excited him. Jingles are probably tougher than film songs because you only get thirty seconds, maybe forty, to convey everything you have to, but he was great at them.”
He was so good in fact that some had already started trying to get music out of him without paying him his dues. Vijay Modi recalls one instance when a textile company approached the young AR through him to create music for a documentary they were making—only they spun it off as a jingle so that they would be charged less for it. They got a thirty-second, forty-second and fifty-second version of the jingle.
“They took the three versions and stitched them together, using some drums in between, to make it seem like one long piece and used it,” Vijay Modi says ruefully. Vijay himself had no clue about any of it until AR called him and told him that he’d heard it playing at a train station in Chennai.
“Do you know anything about this?” AR asked.
“Man, I’m just as baffled as you are!” Vijay replied.
“Ada paavi!” AR exclaimed. This unoffensive Tamil expression of shock or outrage (without a true English equivalent) is a classical AR reaction. It is so associated with him now that his Hindi-speaking employees, who do not speak a word of Tamil otherwise, use it to greet their Tamil colleagues.
AR said, “Vijay, we’ve been taken for a solid ride! We need to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Vijay Modi agreed with him and they were more careful after that.
Their friendship wasn’t just limited to the realm of the creative, or of the professional. Vijay used to travel a lot on work and he used to get AR musical equipment—and parts for the same—from wherever he went and which you just couldn’t get in India at the time.
“This was before the opening up of the Indian economy and all of that,” says Vijay. “Before 1991. There was a 250 per cent duty on the import of foreign goods. Forget Rahman, no one could afford that stuff. I used to bring in stuff not just for him, but for a lot of people and for myself. Some of the stuff would get seized, but mostly it was let through. I really think God was with all of us back then.”
Vijay Modi has a name for the gang that he was working with and growing with during this time: Destiny’s Children.
“I genuinely believe we were quite something,” he says. “Even now. We changed things—technically, creatively. We were ahead of our times and did some great things. Not just Rahman, but so many others. So many of us. And there was just so much friendship and love and goodness. A lot of very noble intentions. It was amazing. There was some awesome synergy going on there back then. We had each other’s backs.”
“You never realize it when you’re living through magic,” says Sharada Trilok. “We were all starting out at that time, and we knew each other and we were working with each other. Prasad Studios and Audiovision were great places and we did a lot of wonderful things from there.”
Vijay Modi and A.R. Rahman remain friends to this day, as are most of the rest of the “Destiny’s Children” who are still around. Not only does Vijay’s son Aditya work closely with AR today, the two men are also personally in touch regularly. Vijay is one of the few people who can still speak his mind to AR, tell him when he thinks Rahman is wrong. And AR can take similar liberties with the older man.
“I knew he had some great potential,” Vijay says, all these decades later. “I knew right from the start that there was something about that kid. In fact, I would ask him every now and then, ‘Hey, when you become a big star, will you do music for my movie?’ and he would always giggle and say, ‘Sure, if it’s your movie.’”
“But no, I have no intentions of making a film now, so he doesn’t have to worry,” Vijay adds.
Yes, Vijay Modi knew the young AR well—and he knew that he was good. Good enough, actually, for him to recommend the lad to some of his friends who were also in the glitzy world of advertising whenever he got the chance—including a couple by the name of Trilok and Sharada.
