Mumbai: World famous musician AR Rahman celebrates his birthday today. He has won millions of hearts with his beautiful songs.
Rahman, who has won the prestigious Oscar award, has earned fame through his music not only in India but across the globe. Born 6 January 1967 in Madras, South India, on the occasion of his birthday, we are going to tell you some special things related to him.
Rahman, who made millions of people crazy with his songs all over the world, initially wanted to become an engineer. Before he stepped into the entertainment industry, he was seen in Doordarshan’s Wonder Balloon as a kid where he shot to fame for being the kid who could play 4 keyboards at once. At that time, Rahman was only 13 years old.
Happy Birthday Thalaivaa 😍😍😍😍 @arrahman #HappyBirthdayARRahman #HBDARR52 #HBDARRahman pic.twitter.com/iQrVOoSc8P
— Guru official ™ (@GuruLeaks) January 5, 2019
Rahman was born into a Hindu family as Dileep Kumar. At the age of 23, the music composer went ahead to embrace Islam, after he met his spiritual guru, Qadri Islam.
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 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.
Reportedly, Airtel’s signature tune which is composed by Rahman, is said to be the world’s most downloaded mobile music with over 150 million downloads.
Mani Ratnam was the first one to spot the talent in Rahman who began film scoring for Ratnam’s Tamil film Roja in 1992. He got a sum of Rs 25000 for the project, and he became the recipient of National Film Award along with huge success, popularity and admiration.
On personal front, Rahman married Saira with whom he has three children namely – Ameen, Khatija and Rahima. Interestingly, his son Ameen shares the same birth date that is 6th January.
Rahman has six National Film Awards, two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, fifteen Filmfare Awards and seventeen Filmfare Awards South. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, in 2010 by the Government of India.
In 2009, Rahman was included in the Time 100 list of the world’s most influential people. The UK-based world-music magazine Songlines named him one of ‘Tomorrow’s World Music Icons’ in August 2011.