It's official, the speculation is finally over. AR Rahman has bagged both the awards he was nominated in - Best Original Score & Best Song (Jai Ho) for the movie "Slumdog Millionaire". Let's face it, Slumdog was not the greatest movie ever made nor was the soundtrack AR Rahman's best. Indian audiences have seen him write and score better music in the past, South Indian audiences have seen this even more since AR Rahman started scoring for the movies in the early 90's. Having said that one can't deny the sheer magic of winning an Oscar is. AR Rahman meekly and with all humility stated thus after winning the first award (original score): "எல்ல புகழும் இறைவனுக்கே".
"All praise belongs to God alone", that was a candid statement to make in an arena where it's not fashionable to take God's name. To add to it he thanked his Mother for being there. Dressed in 'bandgala', which is a close necked version of an indian version of formal suit doesn't require a tie, Rahman belted out Jai Ho & O Saya before the audience. No big speeches, no drama and after winning the second award it looked like the emotions started to overwhelm him as he sprinted to the left of the stage in a hurry. This man deserves every bit of praise and adulation. With the dream of being able to stage an Indian Symphony Orchestra he has started a school of excellence in Music and insha allah the days are not far when we get to see this happen. Enough of going to Budapest, Prague or London to record orchestral music, in a couple of years we'll probably be doing this out of Chennai / Mumbai.
This is only the third time an Indian has won an Oscar award, the first person to win an Oscar was Bhanu Athaiya for the costumes in the movie 'Gandhi'. AR Rahman is the third person to bring the Oscar, Reesul Pookutty being the second. AR Rahman is the only Indian to have ever won two Oscar's at the same show. He's probably also the only composer in the world to have won a double - original score and original song in the same year. The world is really flat.
Reesul Pookutty sharing the 'sound mixing' award with the team that worked on 'Slumdog Millionaire' is a incredible for the technical crew based out of India which always was considered to be among the best in the world but hadn't been recognized as yet. The news channels are already getting opinions from all and sundry (stars, politicians and the like) about the Oscars and these Indian's winning it, here are some messages I got from my friends about Rahman winning the coveted award. These are ordinary people mind you, what's extraordinary about them is their love for good music. There are hardcore fans of Rahman in this list, there are ruthless critics too. The commonality they share is their love for all things good and music is foremost in that list.
"The maestro wins a double for India" - Joshua S Remigius
"Jai Ho" - J Xavier Roy
"Music takes it's pleasure in honoring the trend setter of 21st century" - J Donatus Fernando
"Emotions overwhelm me, I'm finding it difficult to express what's going on in my mind in it's entireity" - Renald M George
"Superb. Congrats to the legend - divine soul. Superb" - Gayathri S
"I didn't want to miss the historic event so I cancelled meetings to watch it live on TV at home. It was a great moment when he chose to say one line in Tamil" - Ramakrishnan V
"Hats off to a living legend, an inspiration. A person who stretches humility and modesty to extremes has won such a terrific honor in the international arena, I'm proud and I am sure every Indian is as much proud if not more" - Roy J George
"That's awesome" - Aaron Pradeep Raj
"Hooaye, am really happy to hear this" - James R Rosario
"WOW, that's great" - Rev.Fr.Mathew
