Music maestro AR Rahman turns 48 today so we bring you 11 lesser known facts about the great musician
- AR Rahman was earlier, Dilip Kumar, he embraced Sufi Islam after he met Qadri Saheb, a sufi mystic. Rahman has confessed that he never liked his old name ‘Dilip Kumar’ and a Hindu astrologer gave Rehman his Muslim name.
- He is the first Asian to have won 2 Oscars in the same year!
- As a kid Rahman made an appearance in Doordarshan’s Wonder Balloon where he got popular for playing 4 keyboards at once.
- AR Rahman’s debut track for Roja is listed among TIME’s “10 Best Soundtracks” of all time, in 2005.
- The Airtel’s signature tune, composed by Rahman, is the world’s most downloaded mobile music with over 150 million downloads.
- In 2009, Time magazine added him in its list of World’s Most Influential People
- Rahman’s father–R. K. Shekhar, was a composer and conductor for Tamil and Malayalam films.
- In 2009, Rahman’s soundtrack for Laagan was ranked at No. 45 on Amazon.com’s “The 100 Greatest World Music Albums of All Time” list.
- In November 2013 A street in Markham, Ontario, Canada, has been re-named in his honour.
- Rahman aimed to become a computer engineer as gadgets and technology fascinated him but he realized that music is his true calling.
- Rahman share the same birth date 6th January with his son Ameen!
