Raving about Raaja

College kids these days say "Ilaiyaraaja may be a genius but his music is passe. You guys are too old and that's why you are stuck up with his music. Change with the times, man..". Bullshit.
Other music directors might be in tune with the changing times, ARR maybe a genius who is even ahead of his times, but Raaja is beyond time, his music is timeless.

And presenting to the college kids, the September edition of Rave magazine. Eat this!

ILAIYARAJA

In Tamil Nadu Ilaiyaraja is God. When you tell people you are on your way to meet him, complete strangers will be gripped by religious fervor and will beg to tag along. In a two-hour chat with the deity, Samantha Iyer discusses his latest creation, Thiruvasagam in Symphony, Oratorio and the price of fame.

In Madras, the autorickshaw drivers are barometers of fame. In the tiniest rise or fall of an eyebrow, or the twitching of a well-pruned handlebar moustache, the Madras autorickshaw driver will let you gauge a man’s worth; his standing in the confusing, ever-changing hierarchy of South India’s celebrity stocked universe. Given my autorickshaw driver’s mercurial reaction when I gave him music director Ilaiyaraja’s address, and his subsequent (failed) attempts at charming his way into sitting in on the interview I was about to conduct, there is little doubt that Isaigani Ilaiyaraja’s star rises first and shines best. After I politely decline my driver’s non-negotiable offer to show me his vocal prowess, and his grandiose gesture to ignore the ridiculously large number on his fare meter, I make my way past a river of footwear winding its inevitable way to Ilaiyaraja’s massive front door. Inside, the music director, surrounded by a symphony of ringing cell phones, sits on what can only be described as a throne, with an entire platoon of Hindu gods and goddesses smiling benevolently in the prayer room directly behind him.