A R Rahman is back in the groove following the amazing success of the soundtrack of ‘Rang De Basanti'. He has once again proved that he knows the nerve of the nation and as well read his director's mind to compose music that has an lasting effect in the minds of the listeners. After a glorious musical career in India, Rahman is forwarding towards his international career. We talk to him about his achievement with RDB's music and his prospect in the national and international scenario.

Excerpts from an interview:

Rang De Basanti's album has been well liked. How do you feel about it?

I wanted the music to get admired and accepted and I had put in my strenuous effort for it. But for the success of the music I have to give partial credit to Rakeysh Mehra. His enthusiasm has been my force and energy. The music workshop before composing helped me in a great way to understand the sequence better and compose likewise. I went ahead and experimented and put a slow song just before the interval and it worked positively.  I'm happy that Rakeysh Mehra treated the music in the film so well. Lyricist Prasoon Joshi, Rakeysh and me were adamant that the songs of RDB have to be chart busting.

Your equation with Aamir is good and may be that's the reason you always give good music for him.

Yes for Lagaan we surely did justice to each other. But Mangal Pandey received a mixed response. Being a composer I was not satisfied with the way the music was treated in the film. My favourite track ‘Maula' was chopped, but these things are not in my hand. 
 
Do you agree that your Bollywood career had come to a halt and RDB revived it once again?
 
I disagree to it. The films that I was supposed to do got held up. So I was delivering music in breaks. Simultaneously I was also handling overseas assignments and also traveling regularly. There was so much to do there, Bombay Dreams, the stage version of Lord Of The Rings. Bombay Dreams paved the way for my international career. This projects meant a lot to me because they were my platform to my international career. It has really eluded me and I've gained the position through lots of hard work. But India is still prior to me and I'm composing music here as well.
 
What are the assignments that you are doing currently?

I'm composing the background score for Shekhar Kapoor's ‘Elizabeth 2'. I'm very excited about it, as it is my first mainstream Hollywood production. The compositions are very different and we'll have original songs from the 15th century. I've also done the background music for Jagmohan Mundhra's Provoked and another Chinese musical. So lot of international music is happening right now. I'm cautiously picking my projects understanding the kind of music to put in, and choosing whether to do the scores or the background music for the kind of films. I'm handling all the international projects now situated in Chennai itself.

What are the Indian films that you're composing for?

I've restricted most of my works for musical and period films. There is Ashutosh Gowariker's ‘Jodha-Akbar', Shyam Benegal's ‘Chamki Chameli', Raj Santoshi's ‘London Dreams', Mani Rathnam's ‘Guru' and Rakeysh Mehra's ‘Bhairavi'. For all of them I'm composing different music based on lots of research.

You also played in the US universities last month. How was it?

They have been playing my music for sometime now and were interested to do a world concert with me. I performed at the Global Rhythms in Michigan and at the Utah University. 152 people performed on stage in Tamil, Hindi and English.

Are you going to concentrate more on international project?

Hindi and Tamil films will always be a priority to me. Other international projects will only come next to it. I'm getting lot of overseas assignment but my work here is also important. I've invested lot in my Chennai studio, the only thing left to be done is to manage time.