AR Rahman opens up on Pune concert incident

CHENNAI: A day after police stopped his concert in Pune for overshooting the 10 pm deadline, composer AR Rahman said he had a “Rockstar moment” after he performed for the audience in the city.

In a tweet posted on Monday night, the Oscar-winning music composer said that he and his band were “overwhelmed” by the concertgoers’ love and wanted to “give more” to them.

“Did we all just have the Rockstar moment on stage yesterday? I think we did. We were overwhelmed by the love of the audience and kept wanting to give more. Pune, thank you once again for such a memorable evening,” Rahman said.

The 56-year-old music composer also shared a video from the live concert, held at the Raja Bahadur Mills in Pune on Sunday evening. “Here is a little snippet of our roller coaster ride,” Rahman wrote.

On Tuesday, a hashtag #DisRespectOfARRahman started trending on Twitter.

After Sunday’s concert, a video went viral on social media platforms in which a police officer was seen walking on the stage and asking Rahman, other artistes and organisers to stop the music show as it was past 10 pm.

In his previous Twitter post, Rahman thanked Pune for “all the love and euphoria” during “a roller coaster concert” but did not address the incident. “Pune! Thank you for all the love and euphoria last night! Was such a roller coaster concert! No wonder Pune is home to so much classical music! We shall be back soon to sing with you all again!” the Oscar-winner had said.

An aide close to Rahman, however, on Monday said the police could have talked to the organisers instead of pointing fingers at Rahman. “10 pm was the curfew time but they have said it is the last song and only a minute left. The police official went to the stage and asked ARR directly to stop, pointing finger at him. Police should have talked to the organisers or other control booths,” the aide said.

Event organiser Dr Heramb Shelke said stopping the show in this manner was disrespectful to Rahman, a composer admired and appreciated across the globe, and it could have been done in a “decent manner”. “At the last moment, this should not have happened as the entire programme was well organised,” he said.