Allah Rakha (meaning God-sustained) Rahman's extraordinary career began in Bollywood with Roja (1992) - which revolutionized instrumentation and recording techniques in Bollywood with its innovations, forcing every other composer to follow suit. But its selection by Time as one of the top 10 soundtracks ever was wildly over the top, as it nowhere approached the melodic and emotional content of the great Bollywood songs. Doubts would be expressed in the following years about Rahman's abilities in those areas, where Bollywood is probably unrivalled. He erased those doubts with excellent music in Bombay, Lagaan, and arguably his finest score (both background and songs) - the 2008 Jodhaa Akbar. Lesser efforts including Taal which earned him an undeserved Filmfare award (which should have gone to Ismail Darbar for the vastly superior Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam; only Ishq Bina from Taal approaching the ethereal beauty of the latter's songs) lined this journey.
His background score for Slumdog Millionaire was excellent, but the crowning glory was Jai Ho, which is a universe away from both Roja and O Saya and right up there with Rahman's best songs including Manmohana, Khwaja mere Khwaja, and Mitwa sun Mitwa. Jai Ho is one of the great songs, not just from Rahman but from Bollywood, which means it is comparable to the greatest music written in any form - popular, Broadway, jazz, blues or classical. Mozart and Beethoven would not only have cheered, they might have been envious...
The hype about Slumdog is that it is about 'hope', optimism, and the human spirit. But Rahman knows better than that - the song celebrates the slumdog's victory, but never forgets the hurt and the longing, the terror and horrors, the struggles, the failures and defeats - they are all present in the undercurrents of this most magnificent of songs.
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