Though I am constantly listening to this one in the background, I don’t want to blog a review on it. Because then I would be hurrying to pass a verdict on this one. Let me wait and let it grow on me. Rather I would say, like every other album let me be engulfed into it slowly and when I write a review in that state of mind, it will be the truth. Also, I do believe that when you write a review about something you need to totally understand what you are reviewing. And for a person of my IQ, I need time to understand & review A R Rahman’s music! (But for now, let me leave it with this: Shreya Ghosal’s voice is sexy!)

The official release date of Guru is 18th ie. tomorrow. But as it always happens (with any good supply chain and Sony-BMG has a good distribution policy) the CDs and cassettes arrived today at 9PM so that tomorrow first thing in the morning they are available. And what do I do? Like a dutiful A R Rahman fan, I rush to the nearest Music World (Pondy Bazaar, for the chennaites) and grab my copy and also one for my brother-in-law (who incidentally is a music composer and a big fan of ARR again!). When I was in the Music World (it was raining outside and I had to wait for 10 minutes to get back home), the guy was playing “Guru” on his system. Someone went upto him and asked him to change the cd. I immediately ran to him and requested him not to play something else. I didn’t want to waste my time by not listening to “Guru”!

If you thought I was mad, I should tell you about my fascination for A R Rahman. it extends to the time I was in my 8th standard. ‘Roja’ was just out. Everyone was talking about him. I was in Bangalore on some vacation. Since I was in Mysore then, we used to travel down to Bangalore very frequently. And during one such trip, my doDappa (Father’s elder brother) introduced me to A R Rahman. He had bought a new Philips Powerhouse just then and during those days a powerhouse was BIG for me. He played “rukumani rukumani” on the system and said, “Listen to this, nobody has ever used drums so confidently in Indian music so far!”. From then on, I have been hooked on to his music like a baby-in-the-womb is to the heartbeat of its mother!

My pocket money those days were Re.1 per day paid once a month. And that cassette of ‘Roja’ costed Rs. 28/- if I remember right. I don’t need to tell you what my budget included for the next month. But my boss (father), like a good finance man, didn’t approve my budget saying ”unfair allocation” (almost 95% of my monthly income was allocated to one item). According to him that would mean that would mean a hefty downfall in my yearly savings to buy a headphone (so that I would not disturb everyone in my house [my father claimed that everyone in the neighbourhood complained to him and that's why he didn't go out of the house once he was back from office] with my music). And he gave me an idea. My neighbour friend actually had a cassette of Roja. I still remember the cover of that cassette. A top angle shot of Madhubala lying on Arvindswamy’s lap against a perfectly white background with Mani Ratnam’s ROJA in tamil prominently displayed at the front and A R Rahman’s name in tamil at the bottom. There as an insert of A R Rahman’s photograph at the left-top corner too. Coming back, my father asked me to get that cassette from my friend for a day and he would get it copied onto a blank cassette through his friend’s tape recorder so that we would get it in good quality. Though we had a two-in-one tape recorder I refused the suggestion that we could record it ourselves saying I want it in the same quality as the original. So he had to say he would get it done from outside. (read outside as a place where maybe the same recording was done but I wouldn’t know na! Appa, you have really taken me for a ride so many times when I was innocent and small na?! Poor me!)  

I was ready to run across to my friend’s house and get the cassette at 9PM in the night. 9PM was considered unrespectable during those days! So, I had to wait till I came back from school the next day. The whole day in school I was just waiting for it to get over! I remember rushing back home on my Hero Ranger (it was a famous brand of cycles then). I changed into colour dress (you get the drift?!), had my tea and snacks and ran to my neighbour’s house. I was literally breathless when I reached there. It is the same breathlessness I experience till-date when I wait for an A R Rahman album to release. I borrowed it from them with a guarantee that I would give it back the day after tomorrow (I remember that they almost made me swear! Mainly because they couldn’t part with the music for more than days and partly because of my reputation!). I took it carefully with me in my hands, since the pocket of my stretchlon half-trousers was too small for the cassette, and deposited it at home with a specific instruction to my mom -
“Don’t misplace it!” (I still laugh aloud when I hear that! I was so careful about something for the first time in my life I guess!). My father would come back from office and take it with him the next day to get it recorded and then I would have my own copy of ‘Roja’. It was a wait which was the most anticipated…

…To be continued