Listening to A R Rahman Is a Test We Are Still Failing

It is important to state this at the outset, not as a badge of identity but as necessary context. Faith is a lived reality for many of us in this country, including me. It shapes routine, instinct, and language, and it reveals itself quietly in habits such as temple visits, remembered prayers, and the reflexive bhagwaan bachalo whispered in moments of fear. For most believers, faith is not an argument to be defended but a relationship to be carried.

It is equally true that reverence does not cancel curiosity. One can be deeply rooted in religion and still be moved by other spiritual traditions without feeling threatened or diluted. Such openness is not irreverence. It is confidence.

This is where the music of A R Rahman enters naturally. His compositions do not demand ideological alignment or theological allegiance. They simply invite listening. They ask the audience to sit with sound, emotion, and silence without first sorting these experiences into acceptable categories.

That distinction matters because what unfolded at his concert was not a clash of beliefs but a test of whether we are still capable of holding multiple forms of devotion within the same space without anxiety.

When I attended the concert, I stood in line for hours, completed my daily chanting while waiting, and entered the venue carrying both belief and curiosity. There was no internal conflict and no theological struggle. It was simply a matter of removing one’s shoes at the temple and opening one’s ears at the concert.

To his credit, Rahman did not cater to impatience. He did not begin with familiar chartbusters designed to generate immediate applause or social media attention. Instead, he chose restraint. The concert unfolded in a Sufi register marked by depth and deliberation. Fifteen thousand people were gradually guided into a collective hush, as closed eyes and gently swaying bodies became part of a shared and unspoken rhythm. It was a rare sight in modern India, where silence is often treated with suspicion.

For a brief while, something quietly remarkable occurred. No one appeared concerned with labels or classifications. No one seemed preoccupied with origin stories or ideological boundaries. People simply listened and hummed along, united by melody, rhythm, and the shared human capacity to feel without first consulting an identity handbook.

Then, inevitably, reality intruded from a corner stand. The interruption was faint yet sharp enough to reach a substantial portion of the audience, though one hopes it did not reach the stage.

Zyada Maula Maula mat kar. Bolo Jai Shree Ram.

The interruption carried less malice than misplaced enthusiasm. It sounded not so much like a chant as a correction, as though the atmosphere itself had momentarily lost its bearings and required urgent realignment.

I am not qualified to judge whether the problem lay in the words themselves. The problem lay unmistakably in the timing. Silence is not interrupted to demonstrate confidence. Interruption arises only when one is uneasy with quiet. What had been a musical experience instantly turned into an assertion.

In the interest of honesty, I must also acknowledge a small hypocrisy of my own. Even I had expectations. I had quietly hoped for Jai Ho or Chaiyya Chaiyya, something familiar and immediately recognisable. The early compositions, though undeniably beautiful, demanded patience. Patience, like any habit, weakens when it is not exercised regularly.

Then came the unmistakable opening of Khwaja Mere Khwaja from Jodhaa Akbar, and the atmosphere across the arena visibly softened. Smiles appeared, recognition spread, and the collective mood relaxed.

It was striking how quickly comfort followed familiarity. Not because the song itself had changed, but because we already knew it. Many in the audience had first encountered it in a cinema hall rather than a dargah. We loved it long before we felt compelled to ask where it came from. Beauty reached us first. Classification arrived later, like an unnecessary footnote.

Here, the irony is difficult to miss. We often claim that familiarity breeds contempt. In practice, familiarity more often breeds acceptance. What we know feels safe, while what we do not know unsettles us. That restlessness frequently disguises itself as righteous certainty.

The shout during the concert was not an expression of confident faith. It was an expression of anxiety. Faith that is secure does not feel the need to interrupt music. It does not require louder assertions, nor does it panic when another name for the divine enters the room.

What lingered after the evening was not anger but irony. Fifteen thousand people had briefly achieved what panel discussions, televised debates, and online arguments struggle to accomplish daily, which is shared silence, shared feeling, and shared humanity. It took exactly one sentence to remind us how fragile that unity remains.

Perhaps the lesson from that evening is modest yet urgent. Listening is harder than declaring. Silence demands more discipline than slogans. Harmony, inconvenient as it may be, does not require uniformity. It requires only the confidence to sit through an unfamiliar melody without rushing to correct it.