The interview which appears below was originally published in Nasreen Munni Kabir's book, A.R. Rahman: The Spirit of Music. ©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.
NMK: Your song “Khwaja mere Khwaja” in Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar (2008) is a beautiful qawali and everyone adores it. I don’t think any other singer could have sung it as well as you did.
ARR: In fact, I had wanted someone else to sing it, but Ashutosh insisted and said: “No, I like your voice.”
NMK: We hear two or three voices on the track.
ARR: All the voices are mine.
NMK: What do people say about your voice?
ARR: What do people say about my voice? It sounds like me of course. [laughs] I suppose they find character in the voice.
NMK: There have been other examples in Hindi cinema of composers who have sung in Hindi cinema. I’m thinking of S.D. Burman. But it isn’t very common. How did you first happen to sing in films?
ARR: I recorded the scratch version of “Andha arabi kadaloram,” which is the Tamil version of the “Humma humma” song in Bombay and Mani Ratnam heard it. I told him that I wanted to replace my singing with another voice. But he insisted that I keep my version and that’s how it all started. People liked the song. Perhaps it was because they didn’t have a preconceived notion of me as a singer.
NMK: In the amazingly beautiful Chitra song “Kehna hi kya” in Bombay, I remember hearing the qawali interlude and thinking to myself: “Wow, what a voice! Who is that?” For years I asked around and finally when we first met in 1999, you told me you had sung that qawali interlude. It was electrifying.
Did you also sing in public in your childhood?
ARR: No. Actually it was in 1996 that I sang in public for the first time at the Filmfare Awards night. I sang. I didn’t want to do the usual stuff, so when it came to a death scene, which is already dramatic, I tried to contrast the emotion by having a song celebrating the hero’s death. For today’s audience, who has seen it all, I felt it could be a more interesting approach.
That said, you have to persuade the director or lyricist to try out an idea that may sound crazy but might achieve the right mood. At times, lyricists resist too and say: “No, that won’t work. The hero is dying so let’s write a song about the sky crying, or the moon weeping.” [smiles]
In Indian cinema storytelling, you usually need drama, something passionate. But today I think people find heavy melodrama depressing. Sometimes a background composition comes to me, when I sit and meditate but doesn’t necessarily match the brief. At other times, you just work on the lines they want and that works fine too.
NMK: What is the technical process involved in writing background music?
ARR: I watch the rough cut, take in the images and then start composing. I don’t mark the film with time-codes or plan the score.
You’re obviously influenced by the images and scenes of the film, but if you compose a score without watching any particular scene or shot, the end results can create an unusual blend of music and film—and 90 percent of the time that method works. But you need time to compose like that.
Background music can also be used to represent a character’s state of mind, or musically underline the intention of the scene. Using music with pace on opposite visuals can work well too. By contrasting a very fast-cut sequence with slow music can give the scene a kind of poetic imagery and atmosphere.
I ask myself: “What is the main point of the film? What are the main themes? Is it about passion or betrayal?” I work on the feelings these things evoke in me and discuss different ideas with the director. I’m not a visual person and don’t interfere with the director and they don’t interfere with my work either.
NMK: Do you compose music on the final cut as well?
ARR: The usual practice in India is to give the composer the final cut about a month before the film is released. But I insist on seeing the rough cut. So I can try and develop themes that might influence the edit.
NMK: Does that mean your score could change the pace of the edit?
ARR: It could influence the edit. In Guru, there is a long dialogue in a courtroom towards the end of the film. The hero, Gurukant Desai, cannot speak because he has suffered a stroke. The hero’s turmoil and repressed energy had to come through the background music. To suggest those emotions, we added a Sanskrit chant describing man’s inherent power and potential for victory. The chant here represented what the hero could not express in dialogue.
NMK: Another fabulous example of your background music is “The Bombay Theme,” originally composed for Mani Ratnam’s film Bombay. It has appealed to many filmmakers. So much so, that if I’m not mistaken, it’s probably the only piece of music in film history that has been used in four separate films.
First in Bombay, followed by Deepa Mehta’s Fire, then again in Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention and most recently, in Julian Schnabel’s Miral.
ARR: It was sweet of Freida Pinto to recommend me to Julian Schnabel for Miral. I was keen to write new music for him but he insisted on using “The Bombay Theme” and a track from He Ping’s Warriors of Heaven and Earth. He said: “AR, no one has heard these tracks here. I love them. It’s no sin to present them again to a new audience.” I reluctantly agreed.
