The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : A.R. Rahman presence rocks alma mater

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 02, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

A.R. Rahman presence rocks alma mater

Susan Muthalaly

The former PSBB-Lake Area student was chief guest at the 25th annual inter-school cultural meet

A SIGN FOR THE FUTURE: Students crowd around A.R. Rahman for an autograph at PSBB School's Cultural Reverberations 2005. — Photo: K. Pichumani

CHENNAI: A.R. Rahman went back to school at the behest of his mother and English teacher. This time, the former PSBB-Lake Area student who "was the one-man band for all the school events" in his time, was the chief guest at the inauguration of the 25th annual inter-school cultural Reverberations 2005. Violinist brothers Ganesh and Kumaresh were the guests of honour.

He was greeted with hysterical screams and cheers as soon as his famous curls became visible to the students.

He apologised for his late entry ("I was working through the night"), but the students did not seem to mind.

The DJ kept playing bursts of Rahman hits such as Muqabla, Fanaa and Vande Mataram.

The last was also performed spiritedly by the school band, an appropriate choice as Ganesh also played for it.

Rahman said though he was musically inclined even as a schoolboy it was during one of the culturals that he got his first taste of rock music such as Deep Purple. "Yeaaah Deep Purple!" yelled one young man enthusiastically and the DJ played the opening strains of "Smoke on the Water" as Rahman looked on amused.

Reverberations was also significant to the two guests of honour as Kumaresh once made a clean sweep of the music prizes when he participated in the culturals as a student of Santhome High School.

The culturals had an invigorating and memorable opening when Ganesh and Kumaresh sang a bhajan of Sai Baba and Rahman sang "Dil Se" ("Wrong song for you, but I like this song," he said).

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