This posting is my story, my journey with ARR.. I just wish to tell him once, how much influenced i am by him and how much impact ARR has in every big decision of my Life... I want to thank him with this post. I knw dis post is very lengthy ...sorry for dat!!!!
http://armozdream.blogspot.com/ THANK YOU SO MUCH A tiny soul wandering around forests, restless from the remembrance of previous birth's unpleasant memories. There were a lot of issues which had to be settled, lots of promises which had to be fulfilled... Saw a beautiful place surrounded by mountains, fresh air, fresh water, divine ambience and thought of taking birth to a beautiful and caring couple and that is how I was born... I was born at the extreme end of country "India" .There is a beautiful city called as "Jammu”. Before I could learn any means of communication, I developed a sense towards sounds. Sounds which have some special quality in them, which gave them a pride of being called as "Music"... U can say that I had some special affinity towards music as the first words which came out of my mouth were some Punjabi folk song which i used to hear a lot in my early age. It totally amazed my dad, who nearly jumped seeing his daughter uttering some words... And after few years, it was the sound of Aazan (Namaz) in Ptv which caught my ears. Though I too small to understand the meaning of religion or religious prayers or even to understand the words of that divine prayer but i was crazy for that. I used to fight with my parents to switch Ptv at right time every day. That caused a reason of worry in my Hindu Brahmin family. A doubt occurred to them fearing if its some last birth effect or some kind of influence of Ptv but after few years, all the doubts were cleared... I was nearly 9 years old & watching my favorite show "Surabhi" on doordarshan. They were talking about a guy "Rahman" who is very young but has created a rage in music industry and then they played a Tamil song "Chinna Chinna Aasai" Though the interview with that guy was in English (that time an alien language for me) but the lines Chinna Chinna aasai infected my nervous system somehow. Later, after few months the same Tamil film "Roja" got released in Hindi. I jumped listening to "Dil hi chota sa". That was the time when a new phase in my life started. My next encounter with ARR was with the movie "Bombay". The song"Kuchi Kuchi Rakma" was the pick of my ears. May b it was the simple "Dholak sound" or the innocent voice of GV Prakash which caught my kiddy ears(but later found out the complexity of the song, how Persian sound is fused with folk composition).Those days my ears were not matured enough to understand the melody of "Tu Hi Re..." or "Bombay Theme".It was few months later, when i accidently forgot to press the stop button of my cassette player after the song "Hama Hama" and the sound of "Tu hi re" filled the room. My heart skipped a beat, all of a sudden i developed a new emotion. There started a new journey, suddenly as if i understood the meaning of art. I could relate pain with the sound of "Bombay theme" and den soon i started to ignore other songs for these 2 tracks. It really sounds funny now. Then ARR gave his first Hindi album "Rangeela". The songs became like my morning, afternoon and evening prayers. Within a week i by hearted the lyrics, tune orchestraization and the mysterious sounds which ARR always embeds in his songs. The were so many movies which did not make much sound in bollywood but I was lucky to get a hand over the cassettes like Priyanka ( Indira), Chor Chor(Thiruda thiruda),Vishwa Vidhata (Pudhiya Mugham), Kabhi na kabhi. I had no idea how those songs were getting dissolved in my blood. There was some other music also which caught my ear like Enigma, sound of Colonial cousins, Shankar Mahadevan's breathless etc but it was ARR who became an inseparable part of my life. I was a loner from my childhood, lost in my own world. I had created a world of ARR around me. His pictures at the 4 sides of the wall of my room. More than 75 pictures. I used to keep an eye on magazines. Actually one of my cousins used to get cuttings of ARR interviews for me from various magazines. I used to read about his Tamil music in interviews. Tried a lot but never got any Tamil album in Jammu. Then, after my 10th standard exam i got an opportunity to visit Bangalore "My First Trip to South India". There i bought all the Tamil songs of ARR. There were about 20 cassettes ..Pudhiya Mugham,Gentleman,Muthu,Padayappa,Kadhal Desam,MayMaatham,Kaaruthamma,Kadhalan, Duet, Indira, Iruvar, Kizhaakku Cheemayile,Uzhavan....etc.They started bringing changes in me.Sitting on the terrace of my sister's hostel(ie in Chitradurga)...staring at the coconut trees (We dnt have coconut trees in jammu), listening to the songs like Thirakatta, enswasa kartrae . It was a memorable time of my life. I have no idea, when "Chinna Chinna Asai" took the place of "Dil hi chota sa" in my heart or u can say that i became addicted to "Thiruda Thiruda" or "Indira" more than "chor chor" or "Priyanka". I was missing SouthIndia after returning back to my native.Though I had the cassettes with me but i faced one small problem. I wanted to know who the singers are and the cover details were usually written in Tamil. I could easily recognise singers like SPB,Hariharan,Chitra,Sujatha etc who had sung hindi songs also but there were many singers who were not known to there in north India. I loved unni Krishnan,Bombay Jayshree's voice in Iruvar but that time always wished if someone could read the names for me... And then i got the solution for that.The movie names were written in both the languages, Tamil and English. So, I started picking up the alphabets from there and learnt them and that was the way i started reading and writing tamil ... yeah, i learnt to read and write tamil words but noone was there to explain the word's meanings to me . The first word i learnt to write in tamil was ofcource , the name, ARRahman... Then after my 12th, i got admission in a college in Bangalore. So the problem to the access to tamil music got solved but there i came accross people who like barring music in terms of langauge , regions. They scolded me for listening to Tamil music while staying in Karnataka. Politians were playing games with the hearts of people but as the distance between north and south couldnt keep me away from worshing ARR's music , how could these small talks stop me? "ARR never stopped creating gems, and i never stopped decorating my life with those gems. " He always gave me reasons to smile,dance,cry even gave me inspiration and support. I remember how much inspired i had been with the song of film Meenakshi "Do Kadam Aur Sahi". ARR gave me all the emotions and expressions of my life. Then , the day came which i was like a dream for me. ARR was going to perform live in Bangalore. It was like a dream come true. But then came the worst part, Tickets were very costly. The decent crowd ticket was for minimum 3k and i was supposed to buy two tickets as i had to sponsor the ticket for my friend also. Otherwise it was impossible for me to attend the concert alone, at night. To arrange 6k was a big issue for a student...but then my sister helped me like an angel. She bought the tickets for me and my friend. I reached the venue 2 hrs before. My heartbeat was impossible to control I was just dying to see ARR but as God was testing my patience. It started raining like anything. Even a part of stage broke down. I and my friend got fully drenched in rain. She asked me if we could return back but how could i return without seeing ARR??? Then after sometime the whole crowd roared, and someone shouted, SEE ARR ON STAGE!!! YEAH!!!!GOSH THE MAN HIMSELF.....he was there with usual smile and asking us to calm down and whatever is the condition, he will play music for us and he kept his promise. The concert for reduced for 2 and half hrs almost and in the ending again it started raining badly. When ARR was signing vandematram the whole crowd went mad. I too was not on earth dat time, somewhere in air singing (shouting, screaming) with ARR and den he said thanks for listening and a final goodbye to crowd. After saying all he stood on the stage staring back at the crowd. He must be wondering that what’s making people standing there in that heavy downpour. I remember him standing there with a smile and then my friend pulled me to go back. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to be there but as the rain was getting angry on us, i was pulled back somehow. But my eyes never left him till we reached the point from where stage wasn’t visible... Wonderful experience... It was the end of my Engg days when I came across a group called Yahoo ARR Fan Group and there I met fellow Rahmaniacs and found out that my craziness for ARR is not only a single example in this world. There are lakhs of people . I met wonderful people there. I got my second family there. I was never this much happy before, Now i can express my views on ARR and people are there to understand and enjoy them. Finally i feel as a river which started from a small place and finally met the Sea. I got a job in Chandigarh (near my hometown) but it was impossible for me to stay away from South India. ARR has injected something in my blood. So I came back.. Well, now the time has come in my life, where I am not only supposed to admire South Indian culture but also to accept it . Am little scared but actually happy about it ... Recently I got an opportunity to be a part of ARR fan's Independence day celebrations with the kids of an orphanage. I never felt so content in my life before. Spending time with those kids was an unforgettable day of my life. Now just one wish is left in my heart. If i could see and meet ARR personally. I want to see the man who has dominated my life for such a long time, who is actually a part of every big decision i take in my life. I want to see how different does he look from how i see him in my dreams. I want to thank him for all the colors he has brought in my life. He doesn’t even know how he has changed the destiny of my life. I wish i could thank him personally and could tell him, my life wouldn’t have been so beautiful without your music. THANK YOU SO MUCH Neetika -- Hyundai to launch the i20 in India. Catch the exclusive preview on ZigWheels.com http://www.zigwheels.com/b2cam/newsDetails.action?name=Emb11_20080731&path=/INDT/News/Emb11_20080731&page=1&pagecount=2&utm_source=indmail&utm_medium=footer&utm_content=tracking&utm_campaign=Nletter_07oct2008_ZW
