AR Rahman recently opened up about his inability to maintain relationships with his friends as he prefers spending time improving his musical pieces rather than fostering friendships.
“I did have friends, but I’m always behind. Even if I have a lot of time, I go even deeper and more intensely into work. If I know that making a song will take eight hours, I don’t stop at that. I keep pushing myself beyond that. My mantra is: more time, better work and better satisfaction. It’s not like I do less work just so that I can have more friends,” the music composer said in an interview with News18.
He added, “I feel like it’s some kind of a ‘nasha (intoxication)’ when I go into my work. I keep telling myself that I can do better and trying to find out what more I can do. I want to be able to tick all the boxes when it comes to getting into a new musical zone. In doing so, 30 years have gone by!”
Even with the communication gap, AR Rahman shared that several of his colleagues and industry friends reached out to him when he was hospitalised in Chennai last month.
He said, “I do love my friends. When they heard that I was in the hospital, everyone reacted to it. So many singers and directors sent me messages. It was very kind of them. I acknowledged all that stuff and thanked them.”
On the professional front, AR Rahman recently composed music for Mani Ratnam’s upcoming film Thug Life. Headlined by Kamal Haasan, the film is set to hit theatres on June 5, 2025.
