When ordinary people become extraordinarily famous, they sometimes forget who they are. Not A. S. Dileep. His life is a lesson in true humility
If you passed A. S. Dileep on the street, you’d probably pay him no mind at all
Is it true that Mick Jagger once worked with a true-born south Indian Hindu and released a stunning album that mixed several different genres?
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Is it true that this same south Indian worked with the legendary Cat Stevens, later Yusuf Islam, on a song called Indian Ocean, to raise money to help children orphaned by the deadly tsunami that hit Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in 2004?
Oh, and is it true that this same fellow composed the soundtrack for Lord of the Rings?
You already know the answers — yes, yes and yes.
This must sound like some inane ethnic joke to you but there is exactly such a fellow, named A. S. Dileep when he was born, who did those three very things. The reason why I only learned his name today is partly because A. S. Dileep is a remarkably humble man. He wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. When ordinary people do extraordinary things, they easily become legends in their own minds, giants in their inner landscapes. Not Dileep.
Like a proper south Indian, he praises god for his gifts and continues doing what he loves more than anything else in the world, which is making music and bringing boundless joy to others. He doesn’t hold forth on vaccine controversies or how much he is concerned about growing authoritarianism in certain countries.
He doesn’t weigh in on whether Muslims are a threat to Hindus or vice versa.
He neither denies global warming nor gives speeches about it.
When he sees Muslim women wearing a burqa, he wishes he could wear one too. He’s that keen not to be noticed.
The truth is that if you passed A. S. Dileep on the street, you’d probably pay him no mind at all. He’s a bit on the short side, a bit overweight and he doesn’t really like being recognised. But out on Apple Music, if you check out his albums, you’d be scrolling and scrolling and scrolling for a long time. I crossed 125 albums and I was still scrolling.
His music makes me cry. He writes love songs full of yearning, reminding me of lovers torn apart, reaching out with longing to each other. He evokes emotions for which words don’t exist. He knows exactly where to withhold a beat so that the listener’s mind supplies it instead. In the middle of a heart-wrenching Tamil song in which rainy oceans separate hearts far apart but beating together, he’ll throw in a saxophone, except that it’ll sing like a nadaswaram at a wedding. He’ll switch between South African harmonies and reggae, heavy metal and bhangra, and make it all sound perfectly normal.
His father put him on the piano when he was just four but Dileep grew up steeped in Carnatic traditions. He learned at the feet of other composers but also kept rockin’ with a group called Nemesis Avenue.
When the Trinity College of Music offered him a scholarship, he accepted. So that happened.
The British music legend, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, invited him to write the music for his musical, Bombay Dreams. Dileep was honoured.
The Finnish folk band Värttinä roped him into composing the score for their Toronto production of The Lord of the Rings.
When Manmohan Singh was invited to the White House, Dileep played for Barack and Michelle Obama.
Then he got a Padma Shri.
Then he won an Oscar for Best Music.
Then Mick Jagger asked him to work on an album with a super-group he was putting together. Dileep had two very distinctively Indian songs on the album, called Superheavy.
The thing is, you already know A. S. Dileep. His father, a Mudaliar, used to create music for Tamil and Malayalam films but died when Dileep was a kid. It was not a good time. They made some money by renting out his musical equipment. While his mother Kasturi taught at a local school. Dileep took on small jobs but only ended up missing classes and exams.
You probably know him by the name he adopted when he was 23. Struggling to raise her children after her husband’s death, his mother was deeply influenced by the Sufi mystic Karimullah Shah Qadri.
Although she had been a practising Hindu, she decided to convert to Islam, changing her name to Kareema.
Dileep, who had never really liked his name very much, followed suit sometime later, also influenced by the mystic. An astrologer suggested the names ‘Abdul Rahman’ or ‘Abdul Rahim’. His mother had a few thoughts on the matter as well.
To cut a long story short, shortly before the country first woke up to his amazing music, in a Maniratnam film called Roja, A. S. Dileep changed his name.
He became Allarakha Rahman. You might know him better as A. R. Rahman.
Here, viewed from there. C Y Gopinath, in Bangkok, throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai, the city that raised him. You can reach him at [email protected]
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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