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Written by: Entertainment Desk
3 min readHyderabadUpdated: Feb 9, 2026 08:55 PM IST
AR Rahman reveals he cried while composing the iconic "Vennelave Vennelave" during a fast.
Some of the greatest artistic breakthroughs happen in moments of struggle, and for AR Rahman, the creation of “Vennelave Vennelave” for the film Minsara Kanavu stands as a testament to this truth. In a recent interview, the maestro pulled back the curtain on how one of Tamil cinema’s most beloved romantic songs came into existence, during a period of low morale.
Rahman recalled the circumstances vividly in an interview with Noise and Grains. “One of my movies had flopped, and everybody was on a low kind of morale,” he shared, describing the atmosphere when director Rajiv Menon was grappling with finding the right musical direction for a crucial sequence in Minsara Kanavu. The pressure was mounting, the creative block was real, and Rahman himself was observing a fast.
It was in this state, physically depleted, emotionally raw, that the melody arrived. “This tune came. I played it and started crying,” Rahman admitted with disarming honesty. When asked why the tears, his response was simple yet profound: “I was trying to crack the situation. This is exactly what I want.”
The composition itself broke new ground in unexpected ways. AR Rahman revealed his extensive use of the duff, a traditional hand drum rarely featured prominently in film music at the time. “I was using a lot of duff because nobody had used duff,” he explained. The instrument came from an unlikely source: a street saint, adding another layer of serendipity to the song’s origins.
“We were trying to overuse it, especially in this part,” Rahman noted, speaking to his deliberate choice to make the unconventional percussion a cornerstone of the arrangement.
What makes “Vennelave Vennelave” particularly remarkable is how it serves multiple narrative purposes within a single composition. AR Rahman described the challenge faced by choreographer-actor Prabhu Deva: “Within that one song, he has to show that he has come to deliver a message, but then he gets vulnerable, he gets excited, he’s trying to restrict himself.”
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The song required capturing an entire emotional journey, confidence dissolving into tenderness, excitement battling restraint, all while maintaining the flow that would make it one of cinema’s most memorable musical moments.
During the interview, AR Rahman’s admiration for what Prabhu Deva achieved was unmistakable. “He’s a genius,” the composer said, praising the performer’s ability to embody such complexity. “To see somebody perform at that level with that kind of self-esteem, empowering courage, he’s going to become a very big director.”
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