Quiet Genius
To anybody who listened to both albums marking India's 50th year as a free nation, it was clear as day. One had energy, originality and stunning variation; the other was somewhat dull and repetitive. Still, peer review helps. So at a function, Lata Mangeshkar turned to A.R. Rahman and said, "I like your Vande Mataram better than my version." The past had acknowledged a future.

Rahman, India's first crossover composer, has marked the future since he made a splash with the film score of mentor Mani Ratnam's Roja in 1993. He has given a new lease of life to movie music and song, taken his form to cut across languages -- Tamil to trendy fusion to national -- and audiences. Rahman made it okay again for yuppies to listen to movie music.

He's still there, a cut above the best, still setting the pace. His critics have a ready line. He combines jazz and pop, pads it up with Indian folk and classical, trims it with Arabic and Greek rhythm frills and voila, it's Mr Please-Everybody Rahman. But nobody can explain how this maestro of sound fires it with a charge, how he picks unknowns to sing for him and gives their voices an edge. "If an album is to please all age groups it has to go beyond current fads," says the fiercely private, religious man who prefers to let his music talk. These days, it talks quietly, like the haunting music for Deepa Mehta's Earth, arguably the most powerful score he has composed since Ratnam's Bombay. As far as anyone can tell, Rahman will be replaced by a Rahman. Get it?