A capella tribute for Rahman on his birthday

The rendition of ‘Elay Keechan’ by two of his fans has gone viral; meanwhile, FM stations played his greatest hits and tributes poured in

Fans and FM stations celebrated Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman’s 48th birthday on Monday by recalling and dedicating songs of the music director’s chartbusting career from his debut feature Roja in 1992 right upto the score for the trailer of Kochadaiiyaan last year.

Almost all the leading FM stations across city, where A.R. Rahman is a big draw, played his songs throughout the day. They also conducted interviews with playback singers on their experience of working with him.

RJ Balaji of Big FM said his station had planned a week-long tribute to Rahman with a special retrospective of his Hindi films on the cards too.

An a capella tribute by fans R. Vijaynarain and Harshitha Krishnan of the song ‘Elay Keechan’ from last year's

Kadal went viral on Twitter and Facebook.

Vijaynarain, who goes by the online alias ‘Ottawa Narayana’ is a semi-professional singer, who has a day job as an IT consultant. He has even recorded for A.R. Rahman and was one of the backing vocalists for ‘Elay Keechan’ too.

Vijaynarain and Harshitha had recorded the song two months back but had waited for Rahman’s birthday to release it. They even made a music video for it with the help of their friend R.S.Srinath. (It can be seen on Facebook page

>www.facebook.com/ottawanarayana ).

Even though social media reverberated with congratulatory messages to his official accounts, the music director, characteristically, preferred to keep it quiet and personal.