The 32-year-old tells Patcy N how she got the shy Rahman to open up to her, and reveal himself.
I had no plans of writing a book. Penguin Books India contacted me in 2003 and commissioned me to write this book. Actually, they were looking out for people to write the book on Rahman. They had short-listed some journalists; I was among them. They had seen my articles in the Indian Express. Christin Sabraini, from Penguin, asked me to give her a brief, and how I would go about it. I did, and was selected.
I read up as much as possible on Rahman. I read whatever material I could get on him, so that I would know where the biography would start from. I jotted down names mentioned by him in his interviews, like Sudarshan master [music director], M K Arjunan master [music director, and his father R K Shekhar’s colleague], L Vaidyanathan [music director] and Thomas Isaac Kathukapli [ad filmmaker, who composes music as well]. I started tracing these people and found managed to talk to most of them. I also spoke to people who knew his father.
Rahman’s past — his childhood and growing up years. Getting details on his father was difficult. But as I met more and more people, I started getting the details I needed.
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