Sukhwinder Singh

You know when Swami Vivekananda addressed audiences in America, he merely said,"Brothers and sisters" -- and the people stood up and clapped for ten minutes because they had only heard Ladies andgentlemen. In india, we say pyare bhaiyo aur behenon. In India, we have as much talent as in Hollywood but we have lacked theplatform to present our talent. Now Rahman’s winning the Oscar has given us that bridge between the west and the east to represent our art. But it has to be done correctly, it has to be branded stuff. 

Rahman has deserved international recognition for a long time and I prayed that he’d get it. I am veryhappy. The first song I ever sang for Rahman was a Tamil one for the film Rakshagan where I gave playback for SP Balasubramanium who played Nagarjuna’sfather. People asked me how could I sing a Tamil song and I replied, "one time, one job". This is something I have learnt from Rahman. When he works, he doesn’t discuss cars or awards or what the next person is doing. He only concentrates on the song he is doing and that concentration is the key to theman. 

There area lot of good young composers today viz. Vishal Bharadwaj, Vishal Shekhar, Salim-Suleiman, among others, but Rahman started 25 years ago and his vision is larger, it is more advanced. These young composers may be inspired byRahman but Rahman was inspired by the old composers. He even remembers the music of the first fifteen films ever made in India. He is inspired by them and inspiration is alsoa learning process. 

Rahman is that rare combination of being a natural plus intelligence. Normally if you area natural, you aren’t intelligent but Rahman is both. Nobody can take Rahman for a ride where royalties and contracts are concerned but I guess being practical is a goodthing. Though it often surprises me, Rahman is really shy. He runs from the media but he is an expert in the economics of how much he should get for his work etc.

My favourite Rahman composition is the Punjabi version of Chaiyyan chaiyyan …it was Thaiyyan thaiyyan and I sang it almost the same way but the way Rahman blended it made ita totally different song. His songs in Bombay were full of pathos. Rahman was good, is good and will be good .His greatest quality is that he doesn’t expect anything during work-- just work itself.  

Do you know Jai Ho was recorded at my studio in Mumbai and the two words Jai Ho were given to Rahman by Subhash Ghai. Gulzar wrote such a brilliantnumber that both Rahman and I were floored and he started composing it at once. Then he asked me to sing the wordsJai Ho and I did. He liked it so much that he said at once: take it. We recorded it and he took it back to Chennai to mix it. 

The credit for the song is truly Gulzar's for the great poetry, the painting in words he has created.

As told to Lata Khubchandani