Rahman and Rock

April 3, 2008, was a memorable day indeed. After all I got to see the little maestro himself -- AR Rahman!!!! He was in Kolkata to judge the finals of the Bangla rock show, Bandwagon, on ETV Bangla, and I was there at the Technician's Studio while the show was being recorded. He was a thorough professional. Not only did he sit through hours of shooting not leaving his seat once, he also smiled throughout and expressed his enjoyment at the musical talent and energy shown by the three bands making it to the finals, viz., Aliens (the winners), Atmahatya (1st runner up) and Indiana (2nd runner up). In fact, it seems Rahman wasn’t an ardent fan of the rock genre, but he admitted that this show might have converted him after all. He also felt that Bengal has tremendous potential in the field of music and hoped these bands would make music to change the world like The Beatles did with Imagine and Queen did with We are the Champions.