A. R. Rahman is an Indian music director, composer, singer-songwriter, and music producer. He is the Oscar-winning composer, he said the initial low phase of his career eventually helped him emerge braver.
He says there was a phase in his life where he felt like a failure and thought about ending his life almost every day. He said “Up until 25, I used to think about suicide. Most of us feel they are not good enough. Because I lost my father, there was this void and there were so many things happening.
“Before that, things were dormant so maybe it (the feeling) manifested then. Because of my father’s death and the way he was working, I didn’t do many movies. I got 35 movies and I did two.
He added that “Everyone wondered ‘How are you going to survive? You have everything, grab it.’ I was 25 then. I couldn’t do that. It’s like eating everything. You become numb. So even if you eat small meals, make it fulfilling.”
He said, “Death is a permanent thing for everyone. Since everything created has an expiry date, so why be afraid of anything?”
He talks about hard times and other events in his life in “Notes of a Dream: The Authorized Biography of AR Rahman”. At the launch event, he reflected upon his journey and excerpts from his life that will be revealed through the book.
“Notes of a Dream has been a journey for me that took me to those corners of my life which have remained candid for a long time,” he said. Written by author Krishna Trilok, the biography, in association with Landmark and Penguin Random House, was launched on Saturday.
Before he made his debut as a composer with Mani Ratnam’s “Roja” (1992), in his 20s he along with his family embraced Sufi Islam. He reinvented himself by letting go not only the baggage from the past but also his birth name – Dileep Kumar, which he says, he despised.
He says, “I never liked my original name, Dileep Kumar. I don’t even know why I hated it. I felt it didn’t match my personality. I wanted to become another person. I felt like that would define and change my whole (being). I wanted to get rid of all the past luggage.”