Le journal Hindustantimes a consacré il y'a quelques jours 6 pages à ARR. Des photos et un interview, un interview qui prend la forme d'une biographie racontée par ARR lui-même. On se demande qu'est qu'il pourrait bien y avoir de plus que ce qu'on sait déjà sur ARR, eh bien lisez le, fans d'ARR, vous ne le regretterez pas! Tout sur sa famille, son père, son enfance, ses croyances, ses souffrances, ses études, son travail, Mani Ratnam et puis... Roja! (Je suis désolée de ne pas faire l'effort de faire la traduction! C'est dans un anglais simple, facilement compréhensible et c'est mieux de le lire dans la version originale!)
Introduction du journaliste: (Sautez cette intro si vous n'aimer pas la lecture et passez à l'interview!)
*****When you emerge from the room after a conversation with music maestro A R Rahman, there are a couple of preconceived notions about the man that you need to fling into the nearest wastebasket.
-Notion 1: He's arrogant, distant and rather standoffish. Reality: He's friendly and warm, and though he's won the National Award four times, and is a Padmashree to boot, he's very humble. Proof: “When I made music for Roja, I was almost certain that it would be my first and last work,” says Rahman. “The prevalent sound at the time was so typical that I had no hope. Not very many people believed that much could be achieved without the usual dholak or harmonium. Not in Indian films at least.”
-Notion 2: He's not very fond of the media. Reality: He doesn't complain or fidget when the half-an-hour interview runs on for longer than three hours.
Proof: “I'm not elusive, that's an image the media has created. I am always available,” he says. “Maybe I've got that reputation because I refuse to do those 'favourite' interviews. The one with silly questions like 'what's your favourite food, actor, place... etc. I can't do that. But to be honest, I feel it's the distance. I'm at one end of the country. So more often than not, I let my music do the talking.”
*****Rahman's music does talk – loud and clear. From the first strains of Dil hai chota sa in Roja (1992) to the latest hit, Khalbali hai khalbali from Rang De Basanti, Rahman's compositions have always become talking points. Film director Mani Ratnam was the man who introduced Rahman to the world, and the world was quick to respond. It isn't just the Indian film-going public who think Rahman is a genius; pop king Michael Jackson and composer Andrew Llyod Webber are also part of his fan base.
Interview avec ARR:
*****“But it wasn't like this always,” he says. Allah Rakha Rahman wasn't born with this name. Nor did he change it for the sake of school certificates or anything of the sort. “My name brought back very bad memories. It just didn't suit me,” says Rahman. “When it started getting too painful to continue with the name I was born with, I changed it.” The name he was given at birth was A S Dileep Kumar. Rahman was born in Chennai, the second of four children, son of of R K and Kasturi Shekhar. R K Shekhar was a wellknown music arranger and composer in Malayalam cinema. “He was so popular that people didn't let him be even when he was hospitalised,” says Rahman. “He would compose music from his hospital bed, with a glucose drip in one arm, and a musical instrument in the other.” It's this period of his life, when his father was ill, that remains etched in Rahman's memories. “I grew up at that time, I guess,” says Rahman. “He battled God only knows what disease it was for nearly four or five years.” R K Shekhar passed away after years of struggle when Rahman was just nine. And with that, his life took a somewhat filmi turn. With the kids still very young and with no means to feed them, Kasturi started renting out her husband's musical instru ments to keep the family clothed and fed.
*****“It was a difficult period. We had nobody to look after us. No family, nothing,” remembers Rahman. “We had no support. Dad's family seemed to have vanished into thin air. It was lonely and sad. But Ma was optimistic.” Solace arrived in the form of a Sufi saint whom the Shekhar family turned to for much-needed support. “I realised then that when you are in trouble, it isn't always the materialistic support that you look for, it is the emotional and psychological feeling of security that becomes more important,” says Rahman. “The mursheed (guru) did exactly that. He generated confidence and re-instilled in us the faith that we were losing. He also predicted my future. He told me that one day I would be what I am today.” Was that why the Shekhar family converted? “Things aren't that simple,” says Rahman. “It wasn't that one day I suddenly got up and said, 'hey, let's convert.' It was a gradual progression and came naturally. I embraced Sufi Islam. For me it wasn't a religion but a belief. It was spiritualism. It healed me and gave me peace. Today I read the namaz five times a day, not because the religion says I should, but because I feel cleansed after it. It makes me feel closer to God.” The other thing that makes him feel closer to God is, of course, his music. Music was the foundation of their upper middle class household. Rahman first trained under his father, of course, though after Shekhar's death, he was on his own. Though his ambition was to be a software engineer, his father's death meant that the family suffered some hard times. It was then that his mother urged him to take up music as a career.
*****“It was a choice between what you could get at home and what you couldn't,” says Rahman. “Thanks to my father, we had a huge collection of musical instruments. My mother motivated me to start learning how to play them.” And he did. For some time, Rahman had a packed schedule: school, training and practice.
*****But then the hard times became harder, and by the time Rahman had turned 14, he knew he had to take charge and start earning for the family. So he joined composer Illayaraja's troupe as a keyboard player. By the time he finished high school, life seemed desolate. “I had to make a choice,” he says. “I couldn't manage academics and earn a livelihood. Between the two, it was clear what I had to do. I was the only breadwinner in my family. I quit the idea of going to college.” From the age of 16, then, Rahman's life became “serious”. It revolved around recording studios, practice sessions and home. In between, he started doing advertising jingles.
“It was a 9 am to 10 pm routine,” he says. “I would start with one studio, record there, practice in another. Then off I'd go to another studio, to record jingles. It just went on. The only time I could get for myself was after 11 pm. That's when I made my music. Night time was my time.” That meant sleep was restricted to the hours between 6 am and 9.30 am. “I couldn't really afford the luxury of more sleep then,” he says. “Now, it's a habit. I have become a night person and am at my creative best during those hours.” But not going to college is Rahman's lasting regret. And since textbooks and college classes were out of his reach, Rahman decided to get a degree in western classical music from Trinity College, Oxford. With his heart and soul in music, and as he performed with people like M S Vishwanathan, Ramesh Naidu, Zakir Hussain and Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, the learning he got from his Trinity College course stood him in good stead.
*****“I did it to prove some things to myself,” says Rahman. “I didn't go to London, this was a distance learning programme. Trinity had a centre affiliated to it in Chennai and I did my degree from there. But the degree was from Oxford.” Though he performed with a popular music troupe, film music never really appealed to Rahman. “The sounds were very similar,” he says. “It was very difficult to break out of the monotony and I couldn't relate to it.” But he was very interested in jingles. They gave him ample scope for his creative instincts. Over six years, he composed more than 300 jingles for companies like Parry's Tata and Titan. “In a way, the jingles even changed the way I perceived film music,” says Rahman.
*****Then, once he got into film work, the jingles slowly eased off – which is why satellite radio company World Space Radio is so pleased that their new signature tune was not only created by A R Rahman, but that the composer is also the company's brand ambassador. “It's like coming full circle,” grins Rahman. “I started with jingles, and here I am with jingles again. And the creative satisfaction still exists.” In fact, it was his jingles, when he was just another struggling musician, that got Rahman that fateful meeting with film director Mani Ratnam. “I met him at a party that was held after an awards function where I had received the best jingle award,” remembers Rahman. “A mutual friend introduced me to Mani, and he asked me to compose the music for his next film right away.” Rahman wasn't inclined to accept the offer right away, but Mani insisted. Rahman was given an open invitation to create the kind of music he wanted to create, but with one caveat: the sounds had to be different. The temptation was too much to resist.
*****“Mani fascinates me,” says Rahman. “He thinks differently and wants everything to be different. Give him the usual stuff and he'll throw it in the bin.” Roja was a landmark in Rahman's life in more ways than one. Not only did he get into composing music for films for the first time, but it as also at this time A S Dileep Kumar changed his name to A R Rahman.
*****Rahman though, was convinced that Roja would mark the end of his career. “I had experimented and was not sure if it would work,” he says. But even so, he continued to take the risk. “At that time, wherever I looked or rather, listened, youngsters were listening to Bryan Adams or Phil Collins. Our compositions didn't have shelf value. The generation then wanted an international feel. I felt that was the right time to experiment and luckily it worked.” Timing certainly helped. When Rahman arrived, the music industry was going through a crisis. Older music composers were retiring, and younger composers lacked innovation. Roja was a massive hit, and Rahman didn't lose the opportunity DIL SE If the chart-busting Chaiyan Chaiyan eulogised love, Rahman's heartwrenching cry in Dil Se Re brought out real passion. Ai Ajnabi and Jiya Jale were also memorable numbers.
