Why Rahman has nothing to do with Tollywood

The world and India celebrated when music composer-director A R Rahman won two Oscars on Monday, but Tollywood could not drag itself into the celebrations. The reason: the sensible music director has so far steered clear of Telugu cinema. So Tollywood too did not quite embrace him.

In the 17 years that he has been a music director, Rahman consciously and deliberately chose not to work for Telugu films. He did not openly or blatantly declare his dislike for Telugu films, but Rahman showed it by avoiding them.

So on a day when Rahman was on top of the world, hardly anyone in the Telugu film industry showed an enthusiasm to celebrate or even display their happiness. The only exception was an emotional music director Koti who declared his love for Rahman on television. Rahman had worked for Koti before the former himself became one.

Rahman had in fact rendered music for only four Telugu films, all movies failed to impress Tollywood audience. Whether it was due to that strange experience or simply a matter of sensibilities that did not match, Rahman never worked on Telugu films thereafter.

Telugu film audiences know Rahman from the films that have been dubbed from Tamil into Telugu and were major hits. These included films like his debut film ‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’, ‘Jeans’, ‘Gentleman’, ‘Boys’, and ‘Sivaji’.

The four direct films that he did in Telugu were Gang Master, Palnati Pourusham, Venkatesh and Nagma-starrer ‘Super Police’ in 1993 and Mahesh Babu and Amisha Patel-starrer ‘Naani’ in 2004. It is said S J Suryah, who directed ‘Naani’ has once again roped in Rahman to compose music for his under-production film ‘Komaram Puli’ starring Pawan Kalyan.

“Rahman has hardly done any Telugu films because he is choosy about the directors he works for. The directors should not only have a music sense but should be able to understand his music and its relevance for the film,” a producer in the Telugu film industry said. Overtures by cash-rich Telugu producers and directors to rope in Rahman were politely but firmly declined, on the pretext that he had prior commitments and could not give the right dates.