The music connoisseur A R Rahman won two Oscars Award at the 81st Annual Academy Awards in Los Angles on Sunday night.
In the Best Original Score category, A R Rahman had to face very tough competition from other nominees of the night including: Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), James Newton Howard (Defiance), Danny Elfman (Milk) and Thomas Newman (Wall-E). But Rahman oozed out as a winner for his musical score in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
While collecting his statuette, he expressed, “Before coming, I was excited and terrified. The last time I felt like that was during my marriage. There’s a dialogue from a Hindi film called "Mere Paas Ma Hai," which means "I have nothing but I have a mother," so mother’s here, her blessings are there with me. I am grateful for her to have come all the way. And I want to thank the Academy for being so kind, all the jury members. I want to thank Sam Schwartz, I/D PR, all the crew of Slumdog, Mr. Gulzar, Raqueeb Alam, Blaaze, my musicians in Chennai and Mumbai. And I want to tell something in Tamil, which I normally say after every award, which is – ‘God is great’. Thank you.”
For the Best Song category, there was barely any competition. For this, Rahman had two nominations – ‘O Saya’ and ‘Jai Ho’. There was one other contender and that was ‘Down to Earth’ from ‘Wall-E’. And he earned the award for the song, ‘Jai Ho’.
While accepting this statuette, A R Rahman uttered, “I just want to thank again the whole crew of Slumdog Millionaire, especially Danny Boyle for giving such a great opportunity. And all the people from Mumbai. The essence of the film, which is about optimism and the power of hope in the lives, and all my life I had a choice of hate and love. I chose love and I’m here. God bless.” Resul Pokutty appeared to be the other Indian, who won for the Best Sound Mixing for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. He shared the Oscar statuette with Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke.
Rahman, who has created history by becoming the first Indian to win two Oscars at one night, dedicates his awards to God (Allah). Besides God, he dedicates his awards to his mother Kareema Begum, who was there to attend the occasion at the Kodak Theater.
Written By: Goher Iqbal Punn
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