Jai Ho

When I first heard about the nomination of AR Rehman for the film 'Slumdog Millionaire' in Oscars, I had told quite a few people that 10 out of 9 (not 9 out of 10) chances that he is going to win the Oscars. Some of my friends replied in anger that I am commenting without hearing the music, forget seeing the film. Then I heard the usual drone - he has given new sound, technology etc. I dont know what is the reason for craze around AR Rehman. I had recently gone for one EDA conference at Taj in Bengaluru and one of the top managers of Cosmic Circuits apparently gave a talk on the 'challenges'. I dont know if it was an attempt to strike a chord with the crowd but the first 10 minutes was about how AR Rehman's music sounds great on mobile phones, how his son enjoys it and all that crap. Finally he uttered something on how his company is very active in developing enabler products for the same. Sure, I was impressed when I first saw (rather than heard) the song in Roja and even more popular 'Chikku Bukku raile' song in Gentleman. Apart from taking too long for a film, ARR's re-recording has always been awful (desis say 'awesome' :(), which even he admitted in an interview in Doordarshan Tamil (now Podhigai). Maybe after doing some non-Indian films, I could see a good improvement in re-recording in 'Rang de Basanti'.

Still, I couldnt regard him as 'extraordinary'. Yes, he won the Oscars as I predicted but I predicted that he will get the Oscars not for his music but totally different reasons. Not surprisingly, today I read The path ‘Jai Ho’ took and to quote

Hindi film director Subhash Ghai revealed here on Sunday that the song ‘Jai Ho’ that won music director A.R. Rehman and lyricist Gulzar an Oscar was originally composed for his film Yuvraaj.

“Then one night Rehman called me and said Danny Boyle was in a hurry and wanted a Hindi song at the end of his film. He asked me if he could give Boyle ‘Jai Ho.’ I told him to go ahead.”

The comic part is that the above link on the film says

The Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman, who planned the score for over two months and completed it in two weeks.

Sure, some musical scores have been used in films. 'Ride of the Valkyries' was indeed used in 'Apoorva Sahodarargal 1949'. The usage of the score in Apocalypse now was regarded as 'novel' but Tamil film used the score as early as 1948. The director has used the score to draw a parallel between mythological context and the film sequence. It would be a sin to elevate AR Rehman's score in 'Slumdog Millionaire' to Eric Wagner or Apocalypse now. From whatever little, I heard of the song - it was infact spectacularly ordinary. Americans can pat themselves on the back for rewarding an Indian and more importantly a Muslim. I always give the quintessential score 'Ecstasy of Gold' as the real example of great teamwork in a film. This is simply not possible without the superb cohesion of director, cinematographer and the composer (Ennio Morricone). The usage of one ordinary score for one film in another film and getting an award for the same is comical, if not ridiculous.