Bollywood’s celebrated film music director, Allah Rakkha Rahman has created history by becoming the first Indian to bag the prestigious Golden Globe Award on Sunday. Rahman has sold nearly as many albums as Madonna, reports Reuters.
“His scores for a host of Indian language movies have fused global influences from hip-hop and rap to Broadway musicals and Indian folk music in a way that critics believe could help Bollywood music become more global.
“Rahman, 43, wrote the music for the rags-to-riches romance of a Mumbai slum boy. The film (“Slumdog Millionaire”) also bagged three more Golden Globe honours for best drama, best director and best screenwriter.” More here…
The IANS reports: “The 66th annual Golden Globe awards run by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of about 90 reporters covering show business for overseas outlets, were presented at a glittering ceremony in Beverly Hills, California Sunday night,
“Rahman also won the Best Composer award Friday as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ swept the 14th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards winning five top prizes including Best Picture of 2008. The film also won Best Director for Boyle, Best Writer for Simon Beaufoy, and Best Young Actor/Actress for Dev Patel.
“Besides the Golden Globes, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ has now won nominations for the top award by all five of the US film industry’s major artistic guilds – Screen Actors Guild, Producers Guild of America, Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild of America, and American Society of Cinematographers. Members of these groups represent a substantial block of the 5,810 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which will award the Oscars Feb 22.” More here…
Working in several of India’s various state/language film industries, international cinema and theatre, by 2003, Rahman, in a career spanning over a decade, has sold more than one hundred million records of his film scores and soundtracks worldwide, and sold over two hundred million cassettes making him one of the world’s top 10 all-time top selling recording artists. His acclaimed music compositions have led TIME Magazine to declare him the “Mozart of Madras”.More here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.