Allah Rakha Rahman

Allah-Rakha Rahman is an Indian composer, singer-songwriter, musician and philanthropist.

Rahman was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India in a middle-class Tamil Mudaliar family. His father ,R.K.Shekhar, was a film score composer and conductor for Tamil and Malayalam films. After his father's death when Rahman was nine years old, the rental of his father's musical equipment provided his family's income.
Ha accompanied the great tabla maestro Zakir Hussain on a few world tours and also won a scholarship at the Trinity college of Music at Oxford University.

Rahman was introduced to Qadiri Islam when his younger sister was seriously ill in 1984. He converted to Islam (his mother's religion) with other members of his family in 1989 at age 23, changing his name from R.S.Dileep Kumar to Allah Rakha Rahman

Rahman met one of India's most famous directors Mani Ratnam. Rahman played him a few of his music samples. Mani loved them so much that he asked Rahman to compose the music for his next film,Roja then his music is going on and get so many awards like ACADEMY AWARDS, two GRAMMY AWARDS, a BAFTA AWARDS, a GOLDEN GLOBE, four NATIONAL FILM AWARDS, fifteen FILMFARE AWARDS and thirteen FILMFARE AWARDS SOUTH.Rahman's body of work for film and stage has given him the nickname of "THE MOZART OF MADRAS"and Tamil commentators and fans call him MUSICAL STORM.

Rahman has been bestowed with the "PADMA BHUSHAN" and "PADMA SHRI" , two of India's highest national civilian awards, recognizing his contribution to music, in addition to several other awards including 4 Indian National Film Awards and 28 Filmfare Awards, India's leading recognition for films. he has also been conferred with honorary doctorates from the Trinity College of Music, Aligarh Muslim University, Anna University and the Middlesex University.  He was also named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2009.

Allah-Rakha Rahman is married to SAIRA BANU and has three children : KHATIJA, RAHIMA AND AMEEN.   

I’m just beguiled by Irrfan Khan’s magic eyes: Tom Hanks

Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks believes his 'Inferno' co-star Irrfan Khan has a physicality which is very endearing.

Hanks is returning in the shoes of Symbologist Robert Langdon for another adventure in director Ron Howard's big screen adaptation of Dan Brown's 'Inferno' where the Indian star, 48, will play the role of Harry "The Provost" Sims, the head of a mysterious organisation, the Consortium.

"I'm just beguiled by his magic eyes. He has a physicality to him that is so specific and endearing," Hanks said about Irrfan at Sony's press event in Cancun, Mexico.

The 59-year-old actor was yet to shoot his scenes with Irrfan while promoting the movie in Mexico last June but he was all praise for the Indian star.

"We're a bit frustrated because I have a number of very huge scenes to work with Irrfan, but we haven't gotten to them yet and, as it is now, we've done, I don't know, six or seven scenes with him and he's only had one line to say. So, I wonder if he can actually string together more than a few phrases. I'm confident that he can, but that will remain to be seen," Hanks said.

The director, however, assured fans that Irrfan has important scenes in the movie.

"We've done a few scenes where he does nothing but talk. Tom just hasn't been in those yet," he said, to which Hanks quipped, "Yeah, I call those, 'days off'."

Howard said Irrfan had specifically asked about Sims role when he first spoke to him.

"His value is his artistry. He's a tremendous actor and I've been a fan for a long time. And when I spoke to him about the movie, he specifically asked about the role of Sims.

"Now, Irrfan does not fit the description of the character as written in the book, but his case for himself, his creative ideas about playing Sims completely won me over and he's an absolute pleasure to work with and incredibly intelligent," said Howard.

The movie will release on October 14 this year.

Sony Pictures India recently released a picture of Irrfan and Hanks together.

Hanks and Howard have previously worked together on 'The Da Vinci Code' as well as Brown's 'Angels and Demons'.

'Inferno', as the name suggests, revolves around Italian poet Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy". In the film, Langdon is racing against time to solve the mystery hidden in Dante's poetry to save the world from a deadly artificial plague.

The movie also stars British actress Felicity Jones, Ben Foster, Omar Sy and Sidsey Babett Knudsen.