There was an interview with ARR in today's Mail Today magazine (Delhi edition). Hadnt even heard of this paper before!!! It was a full two page interview by someone named Sharin Bhatti. As always, some of inclusions in the interview/writing was factually incorrect like saying ARR next year is doing RKS's London Dreams & MR's remake of Lajjo with Aamir and Kareena. And suprisingly no mention of Blue (which according to me will be the JTYJN ie a darkhorse of 2009). I am too lazy to sit and write the whole interview, however some of the few vignettes of the interview were (All the below is according to ARR)
1) Worst song - Que Sera Sera ie he thought he could have done more justice to the song and that it became a hit due to Madhuri Dixit and Prabhu Deva 2) Favourite song - Khwaja Mere Khwaja 3) Favourite instrument - Guitar 4) Favourite singer - Hariharan 5) Like to be reborn as - ARR. Also, he very clealry said he chose to convert to Islam out of choice and not because he was ashamed to being a Hindu There was a para on how he bonded well with Aamir who apart from Mani Rathnam (suprisingly no mention of Shankar here but I dare say to a North Indian, Shankar is just another South Indian director!), the only other person ARR is willing to trust is Aamir Khan. He also talked about how he enjoys bonding with Rakesysh Mehra and Aashutosh Gowariker. And very surprisingly, he considers Deepa Mehta's trilogy of Earth, Fire and Water as the biggest visual accompaniments to his score. The interview also has a bit of dope on the season's current flavour ie SdM. There are a couple of nice pics - one with Nelson Mandela and the other with his wife. There was a short para by Mani Rathnam and Shekhar Kapur on ARR. A very interesting remark made by Mani Rathnam in this column was that ARR always keeps his prayer beads near the keys of his piano whenever he is composing. If someone can scan the interview and put it up, it will be great! But on the whole, it was one of those usual interviews without anything pathbreaking... Cheers! Balaji