India’s finest young music maestro A R Rahman, the pride of the entire nation and an idol for millions all over the world, walked away with two richly respected idols for the best original score and best song in "Slumdog Millionaire" at the recently held glittering 2009 Oscar awards ceremony. Only two Indians have ever won an Oscar – costume designer Bhanu Athaiya for Gandhi (1982) and arthouse director Satyajit Ray who received a lifetime achievement award in 1992. A R Rahman, who became the first Indian to won two Oscar awards, said while accepting the awards, “All my life, I have had a choice of love and hate. I chose love and I am here.”

A.R. Rahman, or Allah Rakha Rahman was actually born A.S. Dileep Kumar to a musically gifted Tamil family in Madras (Chennai) on January 6th 1966. His father, K.A. Sekhar, was a successful composer and conductor in Malayalam movies, a young Rahman would often travel along side his father and attend the many studio sessions required of a composer. Although his young life was filled with promise and joy, much of that was cut short at the age of 9, at the time when Rahman’s father died from a mysterious illness.

Noticing the potential in her only son, Rahman’s mother Kareema Begum encouraged her son to pursue music fulltime, and because of this, his education suffered. After dropping out of school, Rahman stayed busy with his music by accompanying Zakir Hussein and Kunakuddi Vaidyanathan on world tours. His experience and exposure helped him earn a scholarship and obtain a degree in Western Classical Music from Trinity College of Music, Oxford University

In 1988, one of his sisters became seriously ill.  After all medications and prayer services were deemed un-helpful, the family asked for the help of Pir Qadri, a religious muslim whom the family had sought at the time of Rahman’s father’s death. Through Qadri’s prayers and blessings, Rahman’s sister made a miraculous comeback to life, an experience which convinced Rahman and the entire family of the powers of Allah, and as a result, the entire family converted to Islam. No longer did he present himself as A.S. Dileep Kumar, but now went by the name of Allah Rakha Rahman, or A.R. Rahman: "As Dileep I had an inferiority complex. As A.R. Rahman I feel like I have been born again.”

Rahman started his music career by composing for TV commercials. He composed over 300 advertisements in five years. A big break came to Rahman's way when he met the ace director Mani Ratnam at some advertising award function after he bagged the award for the best ad jingle in Sharada Trilok's advertisement for Leo Coffee. Rahman showed some of his compositions to Mani Ratnam. Ratnam liked his work and offered him to compose music for his Tamil movie Roja. Rahman went on to give hits from his very first film. For the film he won his first National Award as Best Music Direction. He became the first composer to win a National Award for his very first film composition.

In 1995 it composed Mani Ratnam's Bombay which was a huge success. Sony Music signed AR Rahman (He was the first Indian artist to sign with Sony Music) for a three-year contract in 1997. The first song he sang was 'Vande Mataram', celebrating 50 years of India's independence. His excellence in Hindi films can be noticed in films like Rangeela (1996), Dil Se.. (1999),  Taal (2000), Zubeidaa (2001), Lagaan (2002), Saathiya (2003), Swades(2005), Rang de Basanti (2007), Guru (2008), Jodhaa Akbar (2009)

Out of the innumerable awards that AR Rahman received, the most noteworthy include  Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent (1995) the prestigious  Padmashri 2000, National Lata Mangeshkar Award (2004), Honorary Award from Stanford University(2006)

He is softly spoken and surprisingly modest about his accomplishments, ascribing his talent and luck to divine intervention: "I believe that whatever comes at a particular time is a blessing from God."His talent is not restricted to music only. Rahman formed a foundation named 'A. R. Rahman Foundation' to fight against poverty. The aim of the foundation is to remove poverty from globe and help children to pursue education who can't afford. Maestro Rahman has also launched the KM Music Conservatory in 2008 in Chennai. The advanced music school concentrate on both Indian and western instrumental and vocal music technology in collaboration with Audio Media Education, an Apple authorized training center which is open for everybody.

It is for certain that though there will be many music composers to shine, none can match up to the richness, originality of Rahman's music. We wish him many many more success in his journey ahead.

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