The Mozart of Madras has brought honour to India again by bagging two trophies at the Grammy awards on Sunday. A.R. Rahman's work in Slumdog Millioniare has won him two Grammy Awards. 'Jai Ho' won the best song in a motion picture and the soundtrack of Slumdog was adjudged the best compilation soundtrack for a motion picture. Rahman shares the best song award with Gulzar and Tanvi Shah (Spanish lyrics) who wrote 'Jai Ho'. He beat Bruce Springsteen (nominated for The Wrestler) to win the best song award.
(Apart from A.R. Rahman, only four Indians are Grammy Award winners: Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, Vikku Vinayak, Tabla wizard Zakir Hussain and Lastly Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.)
Sadly, the other two Indians in the fray (Ustad Zakir Hussain and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan) could not win the musical honours for the categories they were nominated in.
What did the musical genius say after making billions proud?
"I never even dreamt about winning all these awards. I once again want to thank the Almighty, my spiritual Sufi teachers Ameen Peerullah and Malik Sahib. Danny Boyle, Fox and the whole Slumdog creative team, all the awesome actors in the movie, MIA and Resul Pookutty.
“My whole team, Gulzaar ji, Sukvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah, Vijay Prakaash. My friend and sound engineer the late H. Sridhar , Deepak, P.A. Chetan, Vivvianne Chaix, Aditya Modi, Sivakumar, Noell James, Ganesh, Faiz, Anne-Marie, Ranjit Barot and the folks at Nirvana. My agents Sam Schwartz and Amos Newman, my friends Karan,Gopal and Vijay, Deepak Gattani, Mohan Chopra, Chris and Simon Long. My mentor Mani Rathnam, mentors in Mumbai Shekhar Kapur and Subhash Ghai and mentor in the West, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Folks at IDPR, Allison and Courtney.
“My extraordinary musicians from Chennai and Mumbai. My mother, my father, my sisters and my lovely wife and children and all my well-wishers from the world who keep me going .. Jai ho India ..!"
Looks like nothing can stop this true legend! Our heartfelt congratulations to the musical genius A.R. Rahman.
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Check out Rahman's Grammy award message to fans