Recently, A.R. Rahman won national award for Kaatru Veliyidai (directed by Mani Ratnam) songs and Best Background Score Award for the film Mom. A R Rahman spoke to us about the music of Mom. He said, “A film like Mom needed to be driven by music. Ravi and I had collaborated on a commercial long time ago and that too, had won a lot of awards. He knew exactly what he wanted for Mom, but left it to me for my interpretation. I got the idea to compose a song like ‘Muafi Mushkil’ after I saw the film. In some films, the background music is like wallpaper and in others, it is a character. It needs to say things, which the film is not saying or wants to say. I have worked with Boneyji and we wanted to collaborate again. In fact, Srideviji flew down from Mumbai to Chennai and told me that I have to do Mom’s BGM. She also said, ‘I want to work with you’. It seems prophetic now. The BGM of Mom is also my wife’s favourite. When I was in Hollywood last month, she asked my agent there to listen to it. I was surprised because she is not somebody who says or does anything like this. She screamed with joy when she heard that I had won the award for Mom.
Rahman also shared his experience on working with Mani Ratnam, He said, “Working with Mani Ratnam is always a pleasure. He is an umbrella and reservoir of extraordinary creative input and vision. You can throw any crazy idea at him, he will make it organic and make it usable. Very few directors understand music like him, I can say that because have won three National Awards with him. He is a great team player and doesn’t exert his opinions, he will leave it free so the trust make you nervous and you will work hard. I’m blessed to work with Mani Ratnam ji again and again”.