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With the upcoming 99 Songs on April 16th, two-time Academy Award-winning music composer A.R. Rahman will be donning on a new hat as writer/producer for a film. However, not many know about the inspiration behind the spark that lit the maestro to transition to filmmaker. It was Rahman’s long-time collaborator Mani Ratnam who taught him that filmmaking isn’t really different from composing a melody and this was the lesson, that led him to think on creating in a different art form Anand eventually to develop the script for 99 Songs.
“Mani sir once said to me that making a movie is like composing a song. You have the introduction, the song’s theme, the tune and then you do the background mixing. Then comes the antara, and with it, you have a journey that comes to an end beautifully. That’s when it struck me how [fulfilling] it is to create another art form in your own language,” says Rahman.