The 21-year-old composer of 'Kolaveri Di', Anirudh Ravichander, tells TOI that his principal and professors, who hated him in college, are proud of him now
"Kolaveri Di" is the first song of your debut film, "3". How are you taking to your newfound success?
For the first two-three days, I went numb... very numb. Compliments started pouring in from all quarters and everyone I would meet, would come up to me and say, 'Thank you for such a lovely song'.Having tasted success so early in your career, there must be a lot of pressure on you...
I'm straight out of college and am not thinking much. As I said, I went numb when the song went viral. But now that you've mentioned, psychologically there's a lot of pressure. Earlier, I used to work for 10 hours a day on music. Now, I'm trying to put in two-three hours more. Often I tell myself, 'Oh my God, it's my first movie, first song, what am I going to do next?'You're a college passout. How are your friends reacting to your stardom?
I never used to go to college in the first place. But the best part is that I had a band when I was in school and another in college. The core group remains the same. The violinist, the sound engineer - they are all my friends. We have been together for a long time. I play new tunes to them and immediately get their feedback. It's been extremely encouraging.What about the professors from college?
It's rather funny. My professors, the principal, they used to hate me in college and rightly so, I had very poor attendance. But some days back, my principal called up to say, 'I am proud to have you in my college'. That felt great. The stardom has come overnight. One day, you are a normal guy, the other day, you step out of home only to be photographed everywhere. I hope and pray that we get to do a lot of good work.Tell us how the song happened...
I've known Dhanush and Aishwarya for long and it's our camaraderie that has translated into the song. It was a regular jamming session at my home studio. We set out to have some fun while making music. The lyrics just came with the flow. It had some pretty funny English and we were in splits all night. "3" is a wonderful film. Yes, the song was liked from the word go, but never in our wildest dreams did we think it would become this big. Initially, we had thought that the youth in Tamil Nadu will like the song. We were like, 'If the song gets a lakh hits on YouTube, we are there'. Soon there were four lakh hits and then, 10. After that, we just stopped counting.Soup song is understandable, but why did you call it a flop song?
Can I praise my own number and call it a hit? It was a natural decision to call "Kolaveri Di" a flop song.How many offers did you get after the song?
There are many from the Tamil, Telugu and Hindi film industries. But I'm yet to sign on the dotted line. The film's album is already out, two days back. It has 10 songs. In fact, the last two days have been very busy. It's good to see your songs breaking the barriers of language. But my job is still 50 per cent done. I'm yet to work on the background score. A musician's true talent is only tested through background music. And I'm yet to score in that quarter.Aren't you keen on Bollywood?
Bollywood is big and I have quite a few film offers but then all of them want to feature "Kolaveri Di". Bollywood will happen eventually, but right now, I'm concentrating on the work at hand. I can't be a full-time Bollywood composer as I've started out in Tamil Nadu. If I leave now, people will say, 'See, this guy ran away after one film!' I want to choose the best of what I get.Is a "Kolaveri Di" tour on the cards?
(Laughs) No, it's too early to think of such a tour. But yes, this is my first visit to Kolkata and I'm loving it. I've heard a lot about the city's music scene and would love to explore it.
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