The recent incident at an awards ceremony, sparking a discussion on A.R. Rahman’s wife Saira Banu’s lack of fluency in Tamil, has spawned a pithy exchange between the music maestro and veteran actress Kasthuri Shankar.
“What?? A.R Rahman’s wife doesn’t know Tamil? Which is her mother tongue? How do they converse at home?”, the actress tweeted in Tamil. To which Rahman had a succinct reply — Kaadhalukku Mariyaadhai (Respect for love). He added heart and flower emojis. The tweet is going viral.
Kasthuri was quick to reply to ARR’s post with a thumbs-up emoji.
It may be recalled that when Saira was invited to speak at the awards ceremony, she tried to talk in Hindi. Rahman intervened, and asked her to switch to Tamil. She then apologised for not being fluent in Tamil and continued in English. The video-clip of the incident has been making the rounds on social media, and garnering a lot of appreciation from ARR’s fans.
The Ponniyin Selvan composer’s love for the Tamil language is well known. In fact, accepting the Oscar for the Best Original Score for Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, he had said, Ellapugazhum Iraivanukke (all praise be to God).
He has also spoken out against the imposition of Hindi saying “Tamil is the connecting language.” In an interview earlier, Rahman was quoted as saying, “Tamil is my mother tongue, and I am very passionate about the language. I believe that every language should be respected and given its due importance.”
