The official biography of acclaimed music composer AR Rahman will be released in early 2018, The News Minute reported. AR Rahman: The man in the music has been written by Krishna Trilok, and will explore several aspects of the composer’s life and work.
Trilok has previously written the fantasy novel Sharikrida. The 24-year-old writer is the son of advertising filmmakers Sharada and Trilok Nair, who have collaborated with Rahman on several projects and famously introduced the composer to Mani Ratnam, sparking off a long collaboration that began with Roja in 1992. The biography follows Nasreen Munni Kabir’s book-length conversation book The Spirit Of Music and Kamini Mathai’s AR Rahman The Musical Storm.
Rahman’s current projects include Shankar’s 2.0 and Rajeev Menon’s Sarvam Thaala Mayam. He has been busy with non-film projects, including the 19-minute composition The Flying Lotus and the concert film One Heart.
“With this biography, I have strived to get to the heart of the person behind the music, awards and films,” Trilok told The News Minute. “He’s a man whose personality has not been explored— someone who’s very humorous, great and a gentle human being… the aim has been to bring his personality to the fore.”
Among the persons interviewed by Trilok are his parents, Ratnam, Bharat Bala, Rajeev Menon, Rahman’s sisters, his audio engineers and his manager, Vijay Iyer. Rahman’s mastery over musical instruments and new technologies will also be explored in the biography. “He introduced a lot of musicians to the technology and equipment they use in India today,” Trilok told the website. “He made film music composing lucrative for many upcoming music directors and with the help of his strong legal team pushed for procuring copyrights for his songs.”
The book will bring out Rahman’s “paradoxical personality” – he is “incredibly ambitious but also very humble and grounded”, Trilok said. “There’s a lot more to him than being a spiritual person or a composer who works late nights and wins a lot of awards – that’s often been written about... He has a fantastic sense of humour and his one-liners and on the spot jokes are amazing. He loves technology and his mind is like sponge that can absorb any amount of information.”