It has been about 16 years since the release of Abhishek Bachchan starrer film Guru, directed by Mani Ratnam. The film was a runaway success, and was also instrumental in bringing Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai together, leading to their marriage in the next few months. One of the highlights of the film was A. R. Rahman‘s music, especially the song ‘Mayya Mayya’, which featured Mallika Sherawat and was sung by Chinmayi Sripada and Egyptian singer Maryem Tollar.
Now not many are aware that A. R. Rahman had personally trained Maryem to sing the song for the film, and it has been reported that the word Mayya occurred to Rahman, while he was on Hajj in Makkah. It is being said that Rahman, during his trip heard a man repeating ‘ Moya Moya’ which means water in Arabic, and he really liked the song. He then gave the word to legendary lyricist Gulzar and asked him to incorporate it in the tune he had created while he was on a tour in Canada. Incidentally, it was the first song Rahman composed for the film which had other melodies like ‘ Barso Re Megha’, ‘Tere Bina’ and ‘Ay Hairathe’.
The film proved to be one of the biggest hits of Abhishek Bachchan’s career and cemented his position in the industry and also gave him breathing space as his career till then was going through a lull phase.
Now not many are aware that A. R. Rahman had personally trained Maryem to sing the song for the film, and it has been reported that the word Mayya occurred to Rahman, while he was on Hajj in Makkah. It is being said that Rahman, during his trip heard a man repeating ‘ Moya Moya’ which means water in Arabic, and he really liked the song. He then gave the word to legendary lyricist Gulzar and asked him to incorporate it in the tune he had created while he was on a tour in Canada. Incidentally, it was the first song Rahman composed for the film which had other melodies like ‘ Barso Re Megha’, ‘Tere Bina’ and ‘Ay Hairathe’.
The film proved to be one of the biggest hits of Abhishek Bachchan’s career and cemented his position in the industry and also gave him breathing space as his career till then was going through a lull phase.
