Just had a general question: Is Rahman a Malayalee, How authentic is this claim? If he is which part of Kerala is his Native Place, Does anyone of you Rahmaniacs have an answer? Regards,
--- On Sun, 1/18/09, Gopal Srinivasan <catchg...@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Gopal Srinivasan <catchg...@yahoo.com> Subject: [arr] Good as gold To: arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, January 18, 2009, 8:10 AM Good as gold Kaveree Bamzai January 16, 2009 Comment Print Email A A A Share Over the past decade at least two people have made an industry of their Hollywood careers: Shekhar Kapur who can talk anyone to sleep on this subject and Aishwarya Rai who has turned down more roles from Will Smith than she has acted in international movies. So it is apt that a little man who looks like a genial garden gnome and is as ferociously talented as he is unfailingly self-effacing, is enjoying the sort of global acclaim that has eluded so many big talkers and pushy splashers. Allah Rakha Rahman sings his tune Allah Rakha Rahman, a Malayalee Muslim who was born a Hindu and has been playing professionally since the age of 11, fulfils two of the most important criteria for success in my book. One is of doing whatever you do best for at least 10,000 hours in a lifetime, the golden mean that Malcolm Gladwell shows in his new book Outliers is the hallmark of successful people. The other is humility, a lesson the late Randy Pausch says he learnt quite early on his life. In The Last Lecture, he speaks of how he once complained to his mother about a particularly difficult graduate class. “We know how you feel, honey,” his mother said. “When your father was your age, he was fighting the Germans.” This is not to suggest that winning a Golden Globe or perhaps an Oscar is anywhere close to winning a war, but there are wonderful things to learn from Rahman’s story. Look at the barriers he has broken: first in Bollywood which regards talent from the south with the disdain reserved for the underclass. And then in the rest of the world, which has gone from using his songs in end credits to giving him a movie of his own. It’s not been easy. While Rahman’s Bombay Dreams did fairly well at the West End, it faltered on Broadway and pretty much the same fate befell the Toronto staging of the Lord of the Rings musical, of which he was co-composer. But he hasn’t let it affect his enthusiasm for trying something new. Bollywood, which has immediately claimed Rahman as its own, hasn’t always been kind to him. It finds the Mozart from Madras too exacting and demanding. I remember a particularly rueful comment from him at an awards function in Singapore where he acknowledged an award for Lagaan but noted how Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham’s soundtrack seemed far more popular. Rahman has also followed a principle that few talented individuals adhere to. Which brings me to the other Pausch lesson: If you want to achieve your dreams, you had better learn to work and play well with others. Indeed, Rahman’s newly set-up music conservatory and his unique ability to pick gloss from dross makes him an institution builder, not just a professional selfpromoter with a megaphone for a mouth. It’s the kind of thing middle India needs to cling to right now with another dream, built by an apparent model of rectitude, B. Ramalinga Raju, crumbling before our very eyes. http://indiatoday. digitaltoday. in/index. php?option= com_content& issueid=89& task=view& id=25460& sectionid= 23&Itemid= 1
