A small red room inside an unassuming building off a bylane in Chennai transports you into alternate reality. A winding staircase leads up from the ground floor to the mezzanine where a blue carpeted floor contrasts with walls covered in red roses from floor to ceiling, enhanced by mood lighting. At the centre lies a big egg chair with soft red velvet seating. Behind it, a full-length poster reads “ARR Immersive Entertainment”.
A manager helps with a headset, asks me to relax, and switches off the lights. For the next 37 minutes, I am immersed in a multi-sensory cinematic experience―a space where sight, sound and scent blur the lines between reality and a parallel universe.
The story follows an heiress and musician, played by French actress Nora Arnezeder, who uses her memory of scents to track down the men who changed her destiny 20 years after she was orphaned. This is Le Musk, a 37-minute virtual reality film written and directed by two-time Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman. The film, featuring a soundtrack of 12 world music songs, has been showcased at galas around the world, including Cannes, but has yet to be officially released because of “bottlenecks”. I have been fortunate to catch a first glimpse.
For Rahman, Le Musk has become a lesson in patience, but once it is released, he will be at the forefront of immersive cinema, where viewers become participants in the story rather than mere observers.
Rahman, 57, has always loved to experiment and push boundaries. “Technology and the yearning to know more keeps me going. Because it opens up the world for you; there is so much you can do if you know how to do it. I get sleepless if I can’t understand how something works―I will ask a hundred people until I learn it myself,” he says.
A walk through Rahman’s studio reveals the collector he is. With majestic chairs, a scarlet-red piano, and artefacts from around the world, the space feels more like a cafe than a workplace. His team―mostly interns from his music school―seems no older than 25. Vikram, a young assistant in his early 20s, helps set up the camera for the interview. “He noticed my photography skills when I was a teen and has mentored me ever since,” he says. Vikram is now preparing to release his first film as director.
Rahman today contrasts sharply with the eager front-bencher of the 1990s who was determined to prove his musical mettle. Now a more relaxed back-bencher, happy and yet more creatively ambitious, he is focused on the larger picture―leaving his full artistic mark on the global stage. After having delivered original scores and songs for 145 films across multiple languages―Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, English, Persian and Mandarin―Rahman is now prioritising projects that bring him joy. He no longer feels the need to prove himself, instead selecting “big-budget films” and large-scale non-film projects that satisfy his creative and entrepreneurial instincts. “I won the Oscars a long time ago, but now, who cares?” he says. “I am doing work that is close to me and will inspire future generations.”
Rahman recently launched UStream, a state-of-the-art virtual production studio at his ARR Film City in Chennai, a collaboration with technopreneur Sridhar Santhanam. “It will usher in a new era of filmmaking powered by cutting-edge technology,” says Rahman, “where art and technology converge to take Indian storytelling to a global audience.”
His calm demeanour is striking. Is he always this composed? “With age, my tolerance has actually gone down,” he says. “Two things annoy me: a selfie request with a timer and directors who lead me astray. They will add crazy lyrics, and I ask myself: ‘Would I want to perform this on stage?’ If the answer is no, I turn it down.”
For industry insiders and fans alike, Rahman’s experimental genius is no surprise. Veteran percussionist Madhav Pawar recalls how Rahman scored Subhash Ghai’s hit musical Taal (1999). After listening to the title track, ‘Taal se taal mila’, Pawar asked Rahman whether he had dropped the tabla segment that Pawar had recorded. Rahman said no; he had incorporated it into the first mukhda (intro) onwards. “I listened again and was stunned. Throughout the song were bits of my recording, so beautifully modified that I was unable to recognise it as my own work,” says Pawar, who has worked with composer Ilaiyaraaja as well. “While Ilaiyaraaja would keep the instrumental notes mostly as they are, Rahman would go wild and dip them in colours to bring out varied hues.”
Singer Mahalakshmi Iyer recalls how she first met Rahman, when she was in her twenties and “he was all the rage”, to record ‘Ae Ajnabi’ for Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se (1998). “I went to Chennai and he gave me three words―‘Paakhi Paakhi Pardesi’―along with a very basic sketch of the melody,” says Iyer. “He asked me to improvise. So I played around and recorded variations. That mukhda was just a few seconds, but the way he used it, it became the soul of the rendition.”
Rahman uses sounds, says Iyer, like artists use colours. “He gives you a plain canvas with a basic sketch, and asks you to outline the main scenery you want. He then fills in the colours, transforming the background as well as the picture altogether,” she says. “Doing all that requires being in tune with innovations. Rahman was always good at it; even today, he is way ahead of the times.”
But, it is not just his mastery of technology that sets Rahman apart. “There is a difference between using technology for the sake of using it, and making a significant difference with it with the wisdom one has gained over the years,” says director Blessy, who collaborated with Rahman in Aadujeevitham (2024). “He is well-read, and brings a spiritual sensitivity to his compositions.”
A crucial scene in Aadujeevitham, says Blessy, called for a tune that perfectly captured the duality of the lead character’s frame of mind―the agony of being physically exhausted and the elation at being spiritually free. “In 24 hours, he shared a composition that brought out all that needed to be conveyed,” says Blessy. “It’s nothing short of genius.”
Some critics say Rahman leans too heavily on synthetic music, but Iyer disagrees. He might opt for the programmed version of live drums to fill a song, she says, but once he arranges the sounds together, only the melody resonates. “‘Kehna hi kya’ (from Bombay, 1995) is such a masterclass,” says Iyer. “An aspect that works in his favour is his flexibility―he gives you a lot of room, and is very open to new styles. He is always asking, ‘Can we try something different? Can we try something new?’”