When A R Rahman first scored for Roja, you could sense that he had changed things forever. And from there on, he has only baffled us by consistently churning out genius. Absolute genius.However as it usually happens when an album comes out, one song hogs the attention and some gems are lost in the process. So, we decided to put together a playlist of some of Rahman's hauntingly beautiful songs that have been long forgotten.
* Chandralekha - Thiruda Thiruda (1993)Mani Ratnam's adaptation of ' Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid ' had this beautiful dance number, which sounded quite ahead of it's time. Sung amazingly by Anupama and Suresh Peters.
* Spirit of Rangeela - Rangeela (1995)Everyone remembers the rest of the album by heart - whether it was the title track, Haay Rama, Aamir Khan's drunken songs, but this one orchestration captures the spirit of this brilliant film. Special mention for Siva Mani, who owns the theme.
* Mil Gaye - Love Birds (1996)Back then when Hariharan + A R Rahman were a tour de force by themselves, comes this beautiful song more than ably supported by the effervescent Chitra. Enjoy!
* Dheemi Dheemi - 1947 Earth (1998)Deepa Mehta's partition saga stars Aamir Khan, Rahul Khanna and Nandita Das. However, the real star of the film emerged in the form of A R Rahman's music, who shut all his critics up that he could do one kind of music. He nails it with the depth of Dheemi Dheemi - courtesy Hariharan's super-smooth voice.
* Khili Chandani - Indira (1998)Hariharan's brilliance again steals the show in this little-known film called Indira as he croons to ' Khili Chandani' almost sounding like a ghazal. You will know peace after you've heard this one!