Understanding Rahman

A new YouTube series looks at the composer’s ability to reinvent himself

One of the chords that integrates India is A.R. Rahman’s music, but we still don’t know how the creations of a shy Tamil boy found a devoted audience across the world. Everybody seems to have a favourite Rahman song but the reticent composer remains an enigma. Celebrating three decades of his journey, National Film Award-winning director Umesh Aggarwal launched on August 26 a year-long series Rahman Music Sheets on his YouTube channel O2india, which not only profiles Rahman through in-depth interviews with his collaborators but also brings together young artistes from across the globe to recreate his music. “I wanted to convey that Rahman’s music transcends boundaries. We have school students in Japan, who don’t speak Hindi or English, recreating the music of his Tamil films. There are students from the Berklee College of Music and Stanford University,” says Aggarwal, who is remembered for his documentary Jai Ho, that had chronicled the rise of Rahman as a global icon. The new series showcases artistes from the U.S., the U.K., the Czech Republic, Croatia, Turkey, U.A.E. and Australia talking about Rahman. There are other off-beat moments, like the four-year-old Mizo girl singing ‘Vande Mataram’ and a Mizo group singing a choir version of ‘Maa Tujhe Salam’.