AR Rahman on Mission Paani Campaign: This Subject is One of the Closest Things to Me

Oscar-winning music composer AR Rahman, who scored the anthem for the Mission Paani campaign, said that working with director Shekhar Kapur on his now-shelved movie Paani inspired him to come on board the News18 initiative. Rahman was speaking at the Mission Paani Waterthon, an initiative to raise awareness about the urgent water crisis the nation is facing, where he was joined by lyricist Prasoon Joshi, who penned the lyrics for the Mission Paani campaign?s anthem.

?I was very excited about the initiative because this subject is closest to my heart and since I was also working with Shekhar Kapur for ?Paani? for almost 10 years, so I was filled with information about this. I was also the ambassador for the UN for the millennium development goals so I came to know about all this stuff in 2005. So, all this information and the passion to do something which could reach children who probably are the ambassadors for change, I took the idea and Prasoon wrote the beautiful lyrics. We came up with the anthem in a couple of hours in Mumbai and got these amazing children to sing,? Rahman said about composing the anthem for the Mission Paani campaign.

At the forefront of this collaboration are young children who are leading the movement for water conservation and better hygiene in the anthem video. Talking about working with them, Rahman said, ?It?s always special because you see a certain excitement, curiosity, and honesty in their eyes which makes you work harder and find the simpler things in music so that it appeals to everyone. This is something that I learned even when I did jingles back in 1989. They have a certain charm and we are forced to listen when children speak. There is a certain kind of power in their expressions when they talk. If you look at Greta (Thunberg) who probably made the whole world listen to her about climate change, in my opinion, it is the time of children because the undoing could be done by children.?

Prasoon Joshi further said that they thought of collaborating with the young children for the anthem because the latter is a significant piece of society saddle with the responsibility of lifting future goals.

?We thought that if kids sing this anthem then we would realise our responsibilities more because we have to be accountable to them. They are the ones who are going to inherit things from us. What is the world we are leaving behind for them? That is the question,? he added.

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