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A. R. Rahman - Doubting the Legend
Nothing seems to be going well with Common Wealth Games. As if the controversies relating to the corruption surrounding CWG were not enough, even the theme song composed by A. R. Rahman as well has become a point of controversy. The media has gone crazy in criticizing Rahman on the song to the extend of concluding that he no longer has his focus on India and is too occupied with assignments from Hollywood. Did we forget so quickly that he is the one who put India on a global map and brought home the Oscars and Grammys of the world? Why is our memory so short and reactions so extreme?
Last week the theme song for CWG was released. You can listen to it online here.
General reaction to the composition has not been very encouraging all over. The critics didn't like it. Common people didn't like it. There are open reactions to the song on Facebook with fans expressing their dislike for it. The media stretched it too far. Mumbai Mirror ran a huge article on him "Lost to the World" claiming that he has more ambitions in Hollywood, is inaccessible to producers in Bollywood and hence is "lost to the world". It was only a few months earlier that the same media made him the God after he brought home the golden lady of the Oscars. Suddenly after not so great innings with Ravan and CWG, his very commitment to his own country is being doubted.
Our media, and we as a society, are so extreme in our reactions to our heroes. Whether it is Rahman, or Sachin or Dhoni we tend to go over the board when they succeed, bring us glory, and quickly forget it within no time if they lose form.
Let us not forget the umpteen number of super compositions that the "Mozart of Madras" has given us. Starting with Roja, Dil Se, Taal, to Bombay, Lagaan, Swades, RDB, Guru, Jodha Akbar and so on. His melodies are incomparable to his contemporaries. Have a revision of his body of work here, if you need to.
Try to build such a piece for all the composers of the contemporary hindi cinema and you will run out of stock even before you start.
I honestly did not like the CWG song. But then, I also think that "Jai Ho" is not Rahman's best composition. It still took the world by storm. My opinion does not matter. As a fan, I don't expect that I will love all of his compositions and I am perfectly fine with it.
Rahman is a hot topic of discussion everywhere right now. Unfortunately for wrong reasons. Through a discussion thread on Facebook with my friends Uday and Anish, an important observation came up. The comment Rahman made before the release of the CWG song, as Uday points out, was very "non Rahamanish". He said - "Song would go beyond Shakira's chart-buster for this year's soccer World Cup 'Waka Waka'. This is a humble request to the legend. We would love to see the same low-profile, humble Rahaman who would let his music speak for him rather than he making such tall claims and eventually not fulfilling them. We understand he is also a human and these things are normal. But as Anish says rightly, "Its tough for anyone, more so such greats, to not make such a faux paux once in their lifetime. Rahman's greatness will lie in how he takes this experience and comes out of it". I can't agree more.
Last week the theme song for CWG was released. You can listen to it online here.
General reaction to the composition has not been very encouraging all over. The critics didn't like it. Common people didn't like it. There are open reactions to the song on Facebook with fans expressing their dislike for it. The media stretched it too far. Mumbai Mirror ran a huge article on him "Lost to the World" claiming that he has more ambitions in Hollywood, is inaccessible to producers in Bollywood and hence is "lost to the world". It was only a few months earlier that the same media made him the God after he brought home the golden lady of the Oscars. Suddenly after not so great innings with Ravan and CWG, his very commitment to his own country is being doubted.
Our media, and we as a society, are so extreme in our reactions to our heroes. Whether it is Rahman, or Sachin or Dhoni we tend to go over the board when they succeed, bring us glory, and quickly forget it within no time if they lose form.
Let us not forget the umpteen number of super compositions that the "Mozart of Madras" has given us. Starting with Roja, Dil Se, Taal, to Bombay, Lagaan, Swades, RDB, Guru, Jodha Akbar and so on. His melodies are incomparable to his contemporaries. Have a revision of his body of work here, if you need to.
Try to build such a piece for all the composers of the contemporary hindi cinema and you will run out of stock even before you start.
I honestly did not like the CWG song. But then, I also think that "Jai Ho" is not Rahman's best composition. It still took the world by storm. My opinion does not matter. As a fan, I don't expect that I will love all of his compositions and I am perfectly fine with it.
Rahman is a hot topic of discussion everywhere right now. Unfortunately for wrong reasons. Through a discussion thread on Facebook with my friends Uday and Anish, an important observation came up. The comment Rahman made before the release of the CWG song, as Uday points out, was very "non Rahamanish". He said - "Song would go beyond Shakira's chart-buster for this year's soccer World Cup 'Waka Waka'. This is a humble request to the legend. We would love to see the same low-profile, humble Rahaman who would let his music speak for him rather than he making such tall claims and eventually not fulfilling them. We understand he is also a human and these things are normal. But as Anish says rightly, "Its tough for anyone, more so such greats, to not make such a faux paux once in their lifetime. Rahman's greatness will lie in how he takes this experience and comes out of it". I can't agree more.
Rehman himself made statement & raised expectations about his song to "waka waka", now when he released his song that too charging the govt. 5Cr. for such song, its complete waste. the song is nowhere to any normal hindi film hit. Rahman is truly lost as discused. The song has no josh, i also do not want to play it again. The contract of making should have gone to that shankar-loy team, they would have given more justice than rahman did.
ReplyDeleteThe challenge with society and media of today is not just the reactions. What hurts more is the extreme short term memory we as a society seem to carry added to the media's ability to raise issues without taking any accountablity.
ReplyDeleteThe result is we will react extremely to anything raised up for a few days and then forget about it. There is no dearth of examples
Mumbai terror attacks, farmer suicides, Mangalore airport crash, Doctor strikes, Raju-harshad mehta-ketan parekh sagas, the Afzal guru's and kazab's,etc.
Rahman just gets added to the list. Imagine.. we even allowed Vishwanathan Anand's "indian" status get questioned.
I agree.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt the song is far below standards. Is not even hummable. But it certainly is not that big a deal that we steal away the contributions of the man.
Amir had "short term memory loss" after 15 mins ... Our society's duration is bit longer... may be days.
I guess that every talent, every creativity comes with a 'sell by' date. Post which the Gods start looking like mere mortals. They still show glimpses of their extra ordinary abilities but along with a mixed bag of mediocre and ordinary stuff.
ReplyDeleteI also think the celebration, adulation and then downfall is a universal phenomena followed by public in every culture and race.
The West has seen this trend since Elvis - whose music was on decline till his death - which catapulted him to a cult status, then Michael Jackson - in our own lifetimes.
Back home, we have seen similar responses to eminent music directors SJ, RD Burman - actors like Amitabh Bachchan.
I think there are extreme responses when the talent is phenomenal or very innovative as in case of Rehman, MJ or RD. As Taguchi says - Higher the Mean - Higher the variance!! Rehman will definitely learn to deal with it - The question is Will the die hard fans like Amol??