Book Review: A R Rahman-The Spirit Of Music

Here's a Bollywood Hungama Exclusive Book Review of 'A R Rahman-The Spirit Of Music'. This book will be launched today. We give you a sneek peak into Rahman's personal and professional life. Hope you like it.


http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/broadband/video/Special-Features/fG30u753/3/Book-Review-A-R-Rahman-The-Spirit-Of-Music.html

Here's the script of the video commentary that I did for this video (video link in comments section)

This brilliant book chronicles the life and times of Rahman's personal and professional life and the big gift for the Rahman fans is a music cd called Connections having 8 fantastic spiritual tracks composed by Rahman and inspired by Ameen Peerullah Malik Sahab.

Nasreen has done an exhaustive interview with Rahman traversing his entire life and it is presented in a non linear format

How was the childhood of this musical genius, the big role played by his mother in shaping his destiny, early demise of his father and how he and his family scraped through facing severe hardships, reasons for converting to Sufi Islam, how he has grown spiritually over the years with the help of his spiritual gurus, what makes him humble and down to earth and why whenever he has to imagine Home the thoughts of his childhood home at Habibullah Road in Chennai comes to his mind. And yes the roof leaked in this house during rains.

Rahman talks about the bleak phase after his father's death when he played musical instruments in whatever recordings came his way, how he found decent security once he started producing Ad Jingles, when he talks about his mom selling off jewelery meant for the marriage of his two sisters so that Rahman could buy his multi track recorder in 1990, it makes you choke but yes it seems kinda real life imitating reel life....there are long discussions on his association with varied filmmakers like Mani Rathnam, Shekhar kapoor, Danny Boyle, Shankar, Ram Gopal Varma, Subhash Ghai etc. There are noteworthy discussions on the importance of good lyrics for making a lasting song, why he gave break to new singers, his influences both in the south as well as the hindi film industry, experience of working in the West, what did Oscar mean to him and how he looks at the future.

One is also treated to a detailed discography of Rahman's works in all languages and spheres along with various recognitions bestowed upon him in India as well as abroad.

Talking about the Audio CD Connections that is complimentary with the book, there are some wonderful instrumental tracks...three of them are called Silent Invocation 1 , 2, 3 respectively where Naveen Kumar's haunting flute mesmerises you...in Kural, rap singer Blaaze soulfully sings in English while Mann Chandra has been written by Sukhwinder Singh and he sings it along with Shweta Pandit.

Having had the privilege of interviewing A R Rahman on a few occasions, i can safely say that he is a man of very few words and one has to really labour hard to get answers beyond short sentences or mono syllables...in that context, i must say that Nasreen has succesfully made the musical genius open up like never before....A R Rahman The Spirit of Music is an extremely fine biographical piece that must be savoured and yes Connections makes it a double treat for all the fans....go for it

Star Rating: ****