Music maestro A.R. Rahman has always created magic with his music. His fans love him for giving them beautiful songs to listen to, and critics appreciate his efforts with different Academy Awards. The maestro has bagged a Grammy Award as well!
His fans obviously know a lot about him, but there are certain facts about the music legend, A.R. Rahman, which we bet most of you, did not know before.
* A.R. Rahman’s actual name was Dileep Kumar and his wife’s name Saira Banu.
* The maestro converted to Islam, his mother’s religion, when he was 23 years old. This happened when his younger sister fought her illness, and made a miraculous comeback in her life. The maestro was introduced to his guru, Qadri Islam at that time.
* Rahman actually wanted to become an engineer. However, he fell in love with the keyboard gifted by his father. Soon he started playing with Illayaraja, the South Indian music composer.
* He can play four keyboards at once, and Doordarshan even featured him in their Wonder Balloon for the same.
* He was spotted playing the keyboard in the band, Nemesis Avenue. Then, he went ahead composing jingles for different ads.
* He loves to remain busy composing music even on his tours, and does not prefer to go sightseeing.
* The maestro became one of the world’s top selling recording artists by 2004; he sold almost 200 million cassettes and 150 million recordings of his soundtracks. Airtel’s signature line, which was composed by him, was the world’s most downloaded music. It had almost 150 million downloads.
* He holds the “Indian of the Year for Contribution to Popular Music” in the Limca Book of Records, 2007. Rahman also was in Time Magazine’s list of World’s Most Influential People, in the year 2009. In all, the maestro has won 117 awards, and is the first Asian to have won the Oscar twice in a year!
* He has launched a social media platform with filmmaker Shekhar Kapoor. The platform, Qyuki, is launched to showcase the raw talent in the country, and has a wing “Melange” for the new artists.
* The famous song, Kehna Hi Kya, from the film Bombay, was included in the list of 1,000 songs everyone must hear in 2009. The Bombay theme music has been used by many artists- in a French TV commercial, in the Palestinian movie- Divine Intervention, in the movie Fire by Deepa Mehta, and in the movie, Lord Of War.