A.R. Rahman Facts!! [long article]
sunny...@virgin.net
all those films, or rather film titles, that are associated with ARR. One
day you read in some obscure magazine that ARR will be working in a 'xyz'
film. Few days later you discover another source attributing its music to
someone else. Or you have been hearing about a certain film that ARR is
doing for ages and wondering if its ever going to release before its
forgotten totally. And then there are those ARR films that started out under
one title and ended up under another. There are also movies that were
shelved half way through. I agree the world of movies is perplexing. Are you
the kind of ARR fan who thinks you have every ARR movie covered only to be
left fumbling when a friend asks you about a ARR movie you never heard of?
Let me try to be of some assistance. In this article I will try to recount
all such movies and movie titles that were associated with him at some point
of time but finally never saw the light of the day or when they did were
credited to some other composer.
The simplest such set of movies are those which were launched with one title
but were released with another. First of them them being 'Anandam', the Mani
Ratnam movie. 'Anandam' as everyone knows is now 'Iruvar'. Then there was a
certain movie called 'Love Letter'. Stumped? What 'Love Letter'? Well that
was the title of a movie that was supposedly produced by ARR himself and
directed by K.S.Ravi who had earlier worked on the dud 'Mr.Romeo' with ARR.
The movie finally turned out as 'En Swasa Katre' produced by Ansar Ali and R
M Sait who were supposedly good friends of ARR. Similarly 'Dil Se..' was
originally titled 'Ladakh: A Love Story'. Looks like MR moved the setting of
the movie from the previously used Kashmir in 'Roja' to the North-East and
with it dropped the title as well since 'Guwahati: A Love Story' or 'Assam:A
Love Story' doesn't look half as alluring. There was also this movie titled
'Vanitha' ('Karuthamma' dubbed into Telugu). Seems it was later released
under another title called 'Osey Krishnamma'. The movie that takes the cake
as far as multiple names go is definitely '1 2 ka 4'. This movie seems to be
getting a title for every single year it has been in production. If it
doesn't release this year as well you can rest assured that it will get
another title. '1 2 Ka 4' started out as 'Dil Sachcha Chehra Jhoota', then
became 'Pagla', later 'Dost' before getting its present title. Can't say
though if it will remain this till its released.
Secondly lets look at those movies that seem to be in the making eternally.
'Engineer' and "Love You Hamesha' being two of them. 'Engineer' was launched
in 1996. To be directed by Shankar's assistant Gandhi Krishna the movie
featured Madhuri Dixit and the then heartthrob Aravind Swamy. The producer J
S Ramachandra Rao sunk too much moolah into dubbing 'Iruvar' into Telugu as
'Iddaru' and when it bombed found himself in no position to finance
'Engineer' to completion. Lying half complete, there have been rumours from
time to time that the movie is being revived and that its being financed by
Shankar himself. But things look increasingly gloomy for 'Engineer'. With
the film careers of both Arvind Swamy and Madhuri Dixit being over the hill
it looks highly unlikely that this film is going to make the finish line.
'Love You Hamesha' was launched along with 'Jeans' in 1996. Produced jointly
by the same team, Ashok Amritraj and Dr Murali Manohar, the movie supposedly
features the same tracks as 'May Maatham'. Starring Akshaye Khanna, Sonali
Bendre, Riya Sen and Rediff.com's Ajit Balakrishnan's partner Arun Nanda's
son Amitabh Nanda, the movie was launched at a time when Akshaye was being
touted as the next Superstar. The movie is nearly complete and ad-man turned
director Kailash Surendranath says that producer Murali Manohar is playing
truant in releasing the remaining funds and doesn't seem to be interested in
the movie anymore. Ashok Amritraj reportedly washed his hands of the movie
right after 'Jeans' failed to be the success it was expected to be. And so
nobody including the director seems to know if the movie will be released at
all.
One other movie that might soon make this list is 'Rhythm'. Launched way
back in early 1996, by Pyramid V Natarajan the movie was to be directed by
Vasanth and originally starred Arvind Swamy. Later he was replaced by Arjun.
A couple of years later, which itself is too long for a Tamil film, when
everyone was expecting the movie to release we read that the movie was being
reshot since it resembled the story of another Tamil film, 'Pooveli'. Today,
four and a half years after its launch we are still awaiting the movie. It
might be pertinent to point out that since the launch of 'Rhythm' three
other movies of the same director have been released viz. 'Nerukku Ner',
'Poovellam kettupaar' and 'Appu'. Some hope was kindled in ARR fans when HMV
bought out the portfolio of Pyramid Records earlier this year and announced
that it would shortly release the soundtrack of 'Rhythm'. But apart from
that we have heard nothing about this movie and any further delay might
indicate the shelving of the movie.
The third category of movies are those that are surely shelved. There is
this absolutely obscure movie titled 'Love Story'. I have come across only a
solitary reference to this movie. Before the music release of 'Muthu',
Pyramid took out a half page ad in Screen where it mentioned all its
forthcoming ARR releases at that point of time, viz. Muthu, Indian,
Lovebirds, Mr Romeo, Rangeela(in Tamil) and a certain Anbaalaya's 'Love
Story'. I have seen no other mention of this movie and have no clue to any
other details about this movie. Two of ARR's earliest Hindi movies were
'Waqia' and 'Ittefaq'. Both were directed by ARR's school chum Shivendra
Singh and were produced by Milan Jhaveri of MJ Films. Gulzar was supposed to
pen the lyrics for both these movies. 'Waqia' starred Sanjay kapoor and
Karisma Kapoor while 'Ittefaq' starred Chandrachur Singh and Namrata
Shirodkar. A song from 'Waqia was even picturised on Mink. These films also
stand shelved.
"Mudhal Mudhalaaga' can be called 'Engineer''s Pair. Launched at the same
time it starred Arvind Swamy and Karisma Kapoor with Mani Ratnam's assistant
Azhagan Perumal holding the directorial reins. The last one heard of it was
that karisma was no longer doing the movie and that bit of news itself is
more than 3 years old leading one to safely conclude that whatever little
has been shot of the movie will safely lie consigned to the cans. There was
lot of excitement when ARR signed his first movie in Kannada titled 'Ram'
for hotshot Kannada film producer Ramu. Billed as the most expensive movie
to be made in Kannada the movie was slated to star Madhuri Dixit and Arjun
and was to be dubbed into Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. By all accounts the movie
seems to be a non-starter but one hears that ARR is still committed to do a
film for this producer.
But the biggest of them all and whose shelving has arguably caused the
maximum disappointment to ARR fans is Shekhar Kapoor's 'Tararampampam'.
Launched with unprecedented hype the movie was to star Priety Zinta among
others and was to feature all of 10 songs. But then 'Bandit Queen' happened
and Shekhar Kapoor took off for foreign shores. Though he still talks about
reviving 'Tararampampam' nothing concrete has happened in that direction.
And the one unanswered question on everybody's lips is if the 'Tararampam'
song from 'Doli Sajake Rakhna' was originally composed for this film.
Another set of movies are those that were supposed to be dubbed into other
languages. Like "Aishwarya'. Financier-producer Jhamu Sughand reportedly
paid a fortune to acquire the Hindi dubbing rights of 'Iruvar'. And the
tentative Hindi title was the eponymous 'Aishwarya'. After 'Iruvar' bombed
plans to dub the movie were also dropped. But makes we wonder why in the
first place did he want to dub a movie with a theme that few people outside
Tamil Nadu would comprehend. 'Rakshagan' was supposed to be 'Pyar Ka
Rakshak' in its Hindi avatar. Looks like the producer developed cold feet
after the tepid response to 'Rakshagan'. Similarly 'Karuthamma' was supposed
to be remade in Bengali by Bharatiraaja himself. The untitled movie was to
be produced by Parto Ghosh, the director of such Hindi films as '100 Days'
and was to feature ARR's 'Karuthamma' soundtrack. There were also 'Pehla
Pehla' and 'Tholi Tholiga' which were the Hindi and Telugu versions of
'Mudhal Mudhalaaga'. But with the original itself failing to take wing, what
to say of the dubbed versions. Both 'Sangamam' and 'Taj Mahal' were also
slated to be dubbed into Telugu, 'Sangamam' as 'Sangamam' itself and 'Taj
Mahal' under an unspecified title since there was already a Telugu movie
with the title 'Taj Mahal'. Both are yet to see the light of the day.
Interestingly Sushilkumar Agarwal, owner of Ultra Records, and the man who
dubbed 'Duet' into Hindi as 'Tu Hi Mera Dil' had acquired the Hindi dubbing
rights of 'Muthu' and had registered it under the title 'Muthu' (which is a
strange title for a Hindi film, but then, so was 'Roja'). My guess is that
he was hoping to cash in on 'Thillana Thillana' and Rajni's appeal but
backed out after Nadeem-Shravan made capital out of 'Thillana Thillana' when
they flicked it as 'Deewana Deewana' in 'Jung' and the court battles between
the makers of 'Saat Rang Ke Sapne'(ABCL) and 'Muthu'(K.Balachander's
Kavithalaya) over who had the remake rights of Priyadarshan's 'Thenmavin
Kombathu', on which both movies were based.
There are also a whole host of movies that ARR was offered but did not
accept. Director Mira Nair approached ARR to do the score for her
'Kamasutra' but ARR refused and later explained that if he had it would have
been his first English movie and he did not want to be known internationally
as, in his own words, 'the Kamasutra boy'. ARR was also approached to score
a couple of songs for the revised version of india's first 3-D movie 'Chota
Chetan', starring Urmila Matondkar,eventually done by Anu Malik. Other
movies that ARR was offered include painter M.F.Hussain's ode to Madhuri
Dixit, 'Gaj Gamini' and 'Mela'. After 'Rangeela' Aamir Khan along with
director Dharmesh Darshan were trying to get ARR to work in 'Mela' but it
went to Anu Malik after ARR refused the offer owing to time constraints. The
Priyadarshan opus 'Kaalapani' was also originally offered to ARR but he
turned it down because lyricist Javed Akhtar advised him to concentrate on
any one of Priyadarshan's movies. Since he had already begun work on 'Kabhi
Na Kabhi', ARR opted to retain that. It might be worth mentioning that Javed
Akhtar was also the story writer of 'Kabhi Na Kabhi' and post-release
director Priyadarshan and Akhtar blamed each other for the failure of the
movie. More recently ARR turned down Subhash Ghai's "Yaadein' to concentrate
on 'Bombay Dreams'.
I am not sure if ARR was Mansoor Khan's original choice for 'Josh'. Even
before 'Josh' was officially announced, Anu Malik was claiming in interviews
that he was the first music director that Mansoor Khan was
repeating.(Mansoor Khan's first film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak had Anand
Milind, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar had Jatin-Lalit and Akele Hum Akele Tum had
Anu). But when the movie was announced ARR was credited as the music
director. ARR also did mention in an interview that he was looking forward
to work with Mansoor Khan in 'Josh'. But later ARR backed out specifying
lack of time as the reason and the movie was back in Anu Malik's lap.
'Drohkaal' was a film that ARR not only signed but also worked on. Govind
Nihalani's 'Drohkaal' was in fact one of the first Hindi films that ARR
signed. A songless movie, even today ARR recalls 'Drohkaal' as one of the
most interesting films he has worked on. Unfortunately ARR lost his entire
score for the movie when his computer crashed. Subsequently ARR opted out of
the film since he didn't have the time to do the rework. The background
score was done by veteran Vanraj Bhatia and ARR worked with Nihalani later
in 'Thakshak'.
Then there are a set of movies that were being spoken about as ARR's before
the launch of the movie but turned out actually to be someone else's.
Notable among them are Priyadarshan' 'Saat Rang ke Sapne' actually scored by
Nadeem Shravan, Ramgopal Varma's 'Mast' which was actually by Sandeep
Chowta. More recently there was Khaled Mohammed's 'Fizaa' which is actually
Anu Malik's but ARR is scoring a couple of songs for the movie. And 'Lajja'
could well be next on the list with both ARR and Anu claiming that they are
doing the movie. There is one slightly older movie that I have no news on.
When Ashok Amritraj launched 'Jeans' and 'Love you Hamesha' he was in India
to shoot for an English film named 'Jungle Boy' and claimed that ARR would
be scoring the background music for the film. I haven't heard anything about
the movie thereafter. Veteran Telugu director Kranti Kumar's 'Tommidi
Nelalu' (Nine Months) starring Soundarya was also being reported to have
background music by ARR but this was denied by him on the indiatimes.com
chat. Another ARR movie that might remain unmade is Deepa Mehta's 'Water',
the third of her elements trilogy. The shoot of the movie as everyone knows
was halted in February and is slated to resume from September. What is known
about ARR's score for the movie is that he has recorded a couple of songs
based on Meera Bhajans and has completed work on the movie . If the movie is
not allowed to be made then the score of 'Water' might also be lost to his
fans.
In some cases music that ARR originally scored for one movie has been used
in some other movie. For instance Subhash Ghai's 'Shikhar' which had music
by ARR. After Ghai shelved 'Shikhar' ARR reused his compositions for the
movie like 'Ishq Bina' in 'Taal'. And as I mentioned earlier there is a
possibility that the 'Tararampam' song was originally composed for Shekhar
Kapoor's 'Tararampampam'. There is also the likelihood of Rajkumar Santoshi
using ARR's score for his, probably shelved or postponed,
Shahrukh-Aamir-Aishwarya starrer 'Rashq' in his next film 'Lajja'.
Speculation is also rife that the forthcoming Kamalhaasan movie 'Tenali' has
compositions that ARR originally scored for some now shelved movies. In
total contrast to the above movies there's one Malayalam movie that is
credited to ARR but might well be that ARR had nothing to with it. THe movie
is the Mohanlal, Revathi. Gopi starrer 'Vaishnavar'.
I hope this has been helpful in clearing up the clouds surrounding ARR's
movies. If there's one thing that I realised during the writing of this
piece, it is that Anu Malik almost always seems to end up with movies that
ARR was or was supposed to be doing.
© Gopal Srinivasan (taken from the A.R. Rahman website)