HT DIGITAL
Chennai, Aug 9 (PTI): Like there are multiple colours in a rainbow, India has different cultures, languages and film industries and it’s time for the world to acknowledge it, says A R Rahman, the artiste whose music covers genres and geographies.
Rahman, who has worked in the south, in the Hindi film industry as well as Hollywood, Broadway and the London stage, burst into the music scene with Mani Ratnam’s “Roja” in 1992. As he gets ready to celebrate three decades of music with a series of concerts, the double Oscar winner said the Academy Award for “Naatu Naatu”, a Telugu song from “RRR”, gave a glimpse into the versatility of talent from India. “The world believes that the only film industry that exists is the Hindi film industry which we call Bollywood. It’s so nice to see ‘Naatu Naatu’ , a Telugu song, winning Oscars. I never use the word Bollywood since it’s so convenient and derivative from Hollywood. I keep correcting everyone when they use these terms,” Rahman told PTI in an interview.
He won two Oscars for “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” in 2009 – one for best original score and the other for best original song. Rahman also won a Grammy as well as a Golden Globe for “Slumdog Millionaire”.
Rahman, 56, said there are many film industries in the country –Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali. “It’s important that the world has to see there are amazing talents there. If they are given money and exposure, they can come up with stunning stuff and that’s how it should be as India is varied which is not one culture rather multiple cultures like a rainbow,” he added. Rahman is all set to hold the “Marakuma Nenjam” (loosely translated from Tamil to mean ‘will my heart be able to forget this’) concert to celebrate his extraordinary career. He said he always wanted to do “something special” and he got that in his career.
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