A R Rahman Interview at TIMES-NOW on 18.11.2007

Yesterday at 2:30 pm in Times-Now Channel, A R Rahman appeared in the Frankly Speaking with Aranab. Thanks to Amith who told me to catch the program in time.

It was after a long time I was watching an ARR interview in TV. As I cannot manage to watch TV, my missing out his interviews continues. As the title goes, ARR was candid with Arnab except for the fact the interviewer seemed quite bewildered in his attitude.

What I liked about the show was that Arnab took five songs and kept asking what ARR feels about those five particular songs.

Let me jot them down here before I forget them.

Roja

When asked about Roja, ARR chose to speak about Roja Janeman. He said that when he was asked to make a love song, suddenly the starting melody, which was in Desh (then he hummed a little) struck his mind. Then came the mukhra, which was in Pilu. This was a song which contained the emotions of love, separation and patriotism as well, which he never planned to make. But again, when it comes to music, no planned things work. Music has to be spontaneous.

Tanha Tanha

Here ARR said how Ramu used to describe the scenes. In his words – Ramu was very visual always describing the scenes like – there’ll be crane, there’ll be long shots, etc. When he was composing for Rangeela, he was not sure whether the things were working properly. Then one day, while in a meeting with Ramu in Hyderabad, Tanha Tamha came up. Then everything fell in place.

Bombay

When Arnab mentioned about Bombay and mentioned ‘Humma Humma’, ARR was visibly not happy with his pick, though he was smiling. Then Arnab asked him, “which song do you associate with Bombay.” ARR said Tu Hi Re and said that how it was slow and that it was very likely that people would be bored. But the emotion of the song was took it forward.

Dil Se Re

He said that he was in love with a Nusrat song (I forgot the song) and always wondered how Nusrat captured the quiet mood in that song. In Dil Se Re he tried to do that though it was no way inspired from that song.

Fanaa

I don’t really remember what he said here. I just remember that Mani Ratnam asked him to make a different song and he came up with the sound. Here he explained the meaning of ‘fanaa’ so beautifully. He also said that though the meaning of the song seems to be quite light, but it has got very deep meaning.


I didn’t like Arnab, kind of, nagging but not insisting for ARR to sing a piece of music. So ARR easily evaded him with his trade mark smile.

At the end of the interview, Arnab asked ARR, what was his non-ARR favorite song. ARR asked ‘Old or new?’ and then hummed a little bit of ‘Apki Nazron ne Samjha Pyar Ke kaabil Mujhe’, though he didn’t remember the lyrics.