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[Source – IBN Live]

Rajeev Masand: We know that Mani Ratnam has been an influence and a mentor. While you were doing ad films, he offered you Roja and most of your best work has been with him. Tell us as to what kind of relationship do you share with him. Is it something apart from just the director-composer relationship? Are you two friends? Do you hang out outside the studio?

A R Rahman: We don’t hang out much (laughs). What is really a relationship? A relationship means the first good experiences, like first love and you always remember that. He picked up the best out of my work and said, “This is you.” He was the first one who gave me a good work. For us, it’s been a challenge to cross each thing from Bombay to Iruvar. Whenever we sit, we don’t talk about old things, rather we try sharing a new frequency to create the same magic again.

This is one heck of a not-to-miss Rahman interview[Via Ajay]. Truly. IBN’s interviewer Rajeev Masand has done a good job by not asking those cliched questions again. Instead, I found some important questions asked, probably for the first time to Rahman. Though Rahman manages to keep out of controversial ones with a practised ease.

If you are a Rahmaniac, you should read this one, without a question. .

[Source – Aaramthinai]

Aaramthinnai has an interesting interview with writer Indira Parthasarathy. In more than two parts, Part 1 and Part 2. The concluding part is expected to be available in a day or two.

Indira Parthasarathy notes about the controversy surrounding his play on Ramanujar. He explains why lowbrows never bothered about the play when it was published as a book and why they created a chaos when it was staged.

Update – Concluding part of the interview with Prof. IP

Its only now, amidst the heat of elections that I miss watching NDTV and Prannoy Roy‘s analysis talks. Just after when NDTV was started as a channel, there were all-india elections and one could see how NDTV as a channel changed the face of television media for news and analysis. What was only an election day affair at Doordarshan becamse an everyday thingy at NDTV. At NDTV channel, Prannoy was able to pull in a great team together, probably the best in their own areas like statisticians and political analysts.

Today they say IBN Live is rocking the nation with its deadly reporting team and great leadership. Being biased towards NDTV, I am happy for Rajdeep[has a blog] who grew at NDTV and was able to pull together a good team at IBN, with the financial content backing coming from CNN. Now when NDTV sells its videos for a cost, IBN gives it away for free at its site, atleast for now. And thats good for a consumer. But I wish to see Rajdeep questioning Cho Ramaswamy. Last time, Prannoy tried to buckle him down with aggressive cross-questioning and I have to say Prannoy would regret that incident for a long time to come.