Kamal Ghorui
AR Rahman has been in the news for his recent comments in an interview. The Oscar winning composer said that since the last eight years, he’s getting less work in Bollywood and that perhaps could be because of the industry getting more communal. He also called ‘Chhaava’ a film that cashed in on divisiveness. These comments did not go down well with the internet and Rahman faced some backlash. Post which, he also clarified his stance. As many industry celebs reacted to Rahman’s comments, now Ram Gopal Varma who has worked with the composer on ‘Rangeela’ has also reacted to it. When asked to respond to his comments, the director chose to distance himself from the communal angle and said in an interview with Faridoon Shayrar, “I don’t really want to make a comment on what he said about the communal aspect. Because I do not believe that. I feel that the film industry is only about making money. Whoever makes money for them, they will go after that. They don’t care about your caste, religion, or where you’re from. If the South Indian film directors are making films which are blockbusters, they will go to them.”To support his point, Varma referred to the example of SP Balasubrahmanyam and his success in Hindi cinema. He explained, “When SP Balasubrahmanyam was taken for ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’ and ‘Hum Aapke Hai Koun’ by Sooraj Barjatya, those songs were big hits, which is the reason they took them. The moment he was not there, the other songs weren’t working. It could be a Hindi guy or a Telugu or Tamil guy; it doesn’t make a difference.”However, Varma also acknowledged that Rahman’s perspective could stem from personal experiences rather than an industry-wide pattern. Clarifying his stance, he added, “Having said that, I can’t speak for Rahman because I don’t know the experiences that he has had. Any one of us could speak in general, but it is possible for someone to go through something specific, which has made them talk like that. Is it a general thing, or was it something that happened to him? Not knowing these things, I can’t make a comment on them.”Meanwhile RGV recently also clarified his earlier interview where he had said that ‘Jai Ho’ was actually composed by Sukhwinder Singh and not AR Rahman. In his latest tweet, he called Rahman, ‘the greatest composer and the nicest human being’.
