Mumbai: Legendary musician AR Rahman turns 54 today. Rahman has bagged National Film Awards, two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, fifteen Filmfare Awards and seventeen Filmfare Awards South.
Today, on this special occasion, let us tell you an anecdote that you will be a little surprised. His music for Slumdog Millionaire (2008) earned him Best Original Score and Best Original Song at the 81st Academy Awards.
You will be surprised to know that AR Rahman was starving without food to look in shape in the award show.
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British-Indian drama film that is a loose adaptation of the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup, telling the story of 18-year-old Jamal Malik from the Juhu slums of Mumbai.
Rahman shot to global fame with his win and went on to get two more Oscar nominations in 2011 for his original score and song for Boyle’s “127 Hours”.
Rahman initially composed scores for different documentaries and jingles for advertisements and Indian television channels. In 1987 Rahman, then still known as Dileep, composed jingles for a line of watches introduced by Allwyn. He also arranged the jingles for some advertisements that went on to become very popular, including the popular jingle for Titan Watches, in which he used the theme from Mozart’s Symphony no.25.
Rahman is married to Saira Banu (not to be confused with actress Saira Banu); they have three children: Khatija, Rahima and Ameen.