DILIP KUMAR AKA A R RAHMAN

IndianVoice] Once a Roja, now a slumdog
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setlurbadri to IndianVoice
show details 9:07 PM (8 hours ago) Reply


Images are not displayed.
Display images below - Always display images from svbadri@gmail.com
http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=409
Which one is hate and which one is love, Dilip Kumar Mudaliar@A R
Rahman?

S V Badri

25 February 2009

This is not to belittle the genius and success of A R Rahman. This is
just to connect his recent statement at the Oscars to his background,
and to reveal the unknown face Rahman was so clever as to keep under
wraps. This is to bring to surface the second Rahman – one who took to
hating his natal religion the moment he took to Islam.

To the entire world, he is humility personified. He is pious,
religious, genius, the very best. So be it.

His second Oscar acceptance speech gave him away. It allowed us a
sneak preview of the core of Rahman:

"All my life I had a choice of hate or love. I chose love, and I'm
here"

To understand the statement, one must dig into his early life. It
shows deeply hidden hatred for Hindus and Hindu Dharma, ever since he
converted to Islam.Even I, who had seen him work from very close
quarters on two projects in his pre-Roja days, was bowled over by his
simplicity and humility. He nurtured this fine art for years to win
over many of his producers and the public.

The early days of A.S. Dilip Kumar

He was born as A.S. Dilip Kumar to R.K. Sekhar and Kasturi (now
Kareena Begum) in a Tamil Mudaliar family, the second of three
children. His sisters are Kanchana (Rehana after conversion, which
resulted in divorce with her staunch Hindu husband), and Fathima.

Kanchana's son, G.V. Prakash, who has shot to fame as a music director
having already scored music to many films starting with Veyyil and
Rajnikant'sKuchelan, is also a staunch Hindu like his father. G.V.
Prakash was the synthesizer player for Chettinad Vidyashram's music
troupe as a nine-year-old when my son, Aditya Kasyap, then in class
XI, was the music club secretary and lead singer.

R.K. Sekhar (Dilip aka Rehman's father) was an immensely talented
musician, with no real breaks in the film field. He was more a
conductor of orchestra for Salil Chowdhary and Devarajan in Malayalam
filmdom (Mollywood). Yet his father's passion for music was so
embedded in Dilip's genes that when he was just four-years-old, he
started playing the harmonium. Later he learnt piano under the famous
Dhanraj Master. His father gifted him a Synthesizer bought on a trip
to Singapore, and this instrument so fascinated young Dilip that it
became the source of sounds that would change the Indian film music
world later.

In an interview, he says: "My father passed away when I was 9 years
old. My mother used to narrate many tales about my father which used
to make me very happy. My father was regarded to be highly
knowledgeable in music by many people. I still listen to many of the
old songs tuned by him. I think that it's his enormous knowledge of
music that has come down to me by the grace of God."

Sekhar died ironically on the day of the release of his first film.
Young Dilip had tagged along with his mother, hopping from one
hospital to other, including CMC, Vellore, and to Bible-toting pastors
and Sheik Abdul Qadir Jeelani (Pir Qadri), but it was too late…

He became an atheist. When 11 years old, he joined as keyboard player
in Ilayaraja's troupe, struggled hard and slowly made a name with his
popular jingles. His loss of faith in God continued through his teens
when in 1988 one sister fell seriously ill. Medicines, havans and
Bible-reading pastors failed to revive her. The family finally tried
the same Pir Qadri, whom they called very late in the case of Sekhar.
Dilip's sister made a miraculous recovery. This was attributed to the
Pir and Dilip slowly came under his influence. Gradually, the entire
family converted to Islam; Kanchana even accepted divorce as the price
of conversion.

Thus A.S. Dilip Kumar became Allah Rakha Rahman. Today, Rahman says
"Islam has given me peace. As Dilip I had an inferiority complex. As
A.R. Rahman I feel like I have been born again"
[http://members.tripod.com/gopalhome/arrbio.html]

Asked what prompted him to convert to Islam, he said: "I remember my
father suffering. He was taken to eight to nine hospitals, including
the CMC hospital in Vellore and the Vijaya hospital in Madras. I saw
him suffering physical pain... I remember the Christian priests who
would read from the Bible beside his hospital bed... I remember the
pujas and the yagnas performed by the pundits... by the time the
Muslim pirs came it was too late. He had already left us. After my
father passed away, for some years when I was a teenager, I believed
there was no God. But there was a feeling of restlessness within me. I
realised that there can be no life without a force governing us...
without one God. And I found what I was looking for in Islam. I would
go with my mother to dargahs. And Pirsaab Karim Mullashah Qadri would
advise us. When we shifted to this house, we resolved to stick to the
faith."

The family's penchant to check with astrologers did not desert them
even after converting to Islam; an astrologer chose Dilip's Islamic
name! He gave him the name Abdul Rahman, but insisted that he should
have two initials, so he became Abdul Rahman Rahman. Later, Naushad
turned `A.R.' to Allah Rakha, and Dilip Kumar became Allah Rakha
Rahman.

It is reputed that G. Venkateshwaran of GV Films and his brother Mani
Ratnam had some misunderstanding with Illayaraja, and that is how
Rahman was picked for Roja; the rest is history.

A Roja becomes a slumdog - Hate vs. Love

"All my life I had a choice of hate or love. I chose love, and I'm
here."

Was the Oscar stage was so intoxicating that the truth had to come
out? Dilip alias Rahman must explain what `hate' is and what `love'
is. Does he mean that Hindu Dharma is `hate' and that is why he
deserted it; that Islam is `love' and that is why he embraced it?
Could he achieve these musical heights in any of the known Islamic
paradises now blooming in the neighbourhood? Above all, is not this
music itself the gift of Hindu Bharat?

A colleague and Rahman apologist mumbled that the musical wonder
actually meant `Wahabi Islam' when he spoke about `hate,' and that
`love' referred to Sufi Islam – I am too old for such stories. If that
is indeed what Rahman meant, then that is what he should have said –
that too at a moment when he had the whole world's attention, and
adulation.

Tail Piece

It is pertinent to recall that in the immediate aftermath of
Partition, the Peshawar-born and immensely talented Yusuf Khan took
the film name Dilip Kumar to deflect possible non-acceptance by a
Hindu audience. In the same era, however, Waheeda Rahman boldly stuck
to her maiden name, and proved that Hindu Bharat was above petty
prejudice and openly nurtured talent.

Certainly Dilip-Rahman deserves his success. But I am disappointed
with his `hate' versus `love' acceptance speech. This was actually the
moment for him to say Vande Mataram.