Chinna Chinna Aasai to BAFTA
Congratulations to Mozart of Madras A R Rahman for adding one more feather to India’s cap by winning the BAFTA (British Academy of Television and Arts) awards for best music score in the film SlumDog Millionaire. Almost a month back he made every Indian’s globe gold with the Golden Globe.
SlumDog Millionaire as it is will now be seen around the world by millions and millions of movie lovers around the world at the cinema halls and on DVD. This movie and his winning score will make A R Rahman’s music heard not just in Indian homes but at the homes of Americans, Britishers, Arabs, Japanese, Chinese, Malays, Thais, Koreans, Africans and so on. That I think is a quantum leap for Indian music and that is the greatest benefit of these awards.
This post is a tribute to ARR by remembering where his journey as a film music composer commenced 17 years back in 1992. All the Rahman fans (known as Rahmaniacs) know that A R Rahman announced his arrival to the Indian music world with his hit numbers in Maniratnam’s Roja. All the songs in that movie were super hits both in Tamil and in Hindi. Most likely they also got dubbed in other languages.
Amongst all the great songs in the movie, one song captivated the music lovers much more than the others due to sheer beauty of the lyrics, picturization (in my memory this is one song where for each line a separate shot is picturized) and the superlative and very new music. That song even now gives the same pleasure as it did when I first heard it. Does anyone know that it is not only the first song composed by A R Rahman but also the first song sung by the maestro.
About two years back, I bought the DVD of A R Rahman’s live performance (directed by Maniratnam) in USA in which the hindi version of Chinna Chinna Aasai (choti si aasha) was rendered by Sadhana Sargam.
In the middle of the song A R Rahman got up to render the lines “Elelo Ele Elelo” and the crowd erupted. That moment brought out the adulation that Rahman enjoys with his fans.
I have the pleasure of sharing that video with you all.
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Hi Triplicani,
When Roja’s music CD and Cassettes came, I heard lot of my friends calling it as a supper-duper hit. I was an ardent Ilayaraja fan then (of course, I am his fan even now). I used to tell my friends at that time that this is a good song but will not last for long like Ilayaraja’s.
But one of the other reason for saying like that was Vairamuthu. Though Vairamuthu’s pen have given wonderful songs, I somehow felt that he had maintained a distance from laymen. So for this song my funny comment was “வேறே வேலையில்லாதவன் தான் இதெல்லாம் செய்வான். இதெல்லாம் நடைமுறையில ஒரு கிராமத்துப் பெண் பாட வாய்ப்பு இல்ல. அப்படியே பாடினாலும் அது உரையாடல் தமிழ்ல தான் இருக்கும்”
May be this is also one of the reasons why I did not like that song (that much). As the days passed (leave all those awards, I have least faith in those) Rahman started to amaze me with beautiful songs movie after movie. The very taste of the song can be realised only when we listen to it after a gap.
Three-four months back I loaded all ARR songs in my iPod. With the Bose Speakers connected to it I played Chinna chinna aasai with Periya Periya Osai (louder like in Tea Shops). I was totally amazed and Rahman pulled me into the song. I told to myself, “I was wrong”.
Apologies for rating this songs down when it came first. May be I was in a transition stage…
Thanks for bringing back my memories with the song.
Hi Sathya,
Tamilnadu has produced great music composers in G. Ramanathan, K.V. Mahadevan, M.S. Vishvanathan, Ilayaraja and A.R. Rahman.
Rahman in this list is responsible for drawing the attention of the world to the music unique to this part of the world.
In my opinion A.R. Rahman himself is a gold for India.I heard one of the best song which is composed by A.R.Rahman.Name of the song is VANDE MATRAM…..LASTLY I WANNA SAY THAT … GOD BLESS YOU A.R.RAHMAN SIR.AND BECOME A GOLD FOR WORLD NOT ONLY FOR INDIA………..!!!!!!!
Indian Music is really cool and some of it are great dance music too.:*:
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