Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth open up about Ilayaraja

Yesterday’s event in Mumbai to celebrate Ilaiyaraja’s 1000 films in the industry saw the legends of Indian cinema – Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Amitabh Bachchan and Sridevi – come together on stage. In a chat session, Big B, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan revealed their working experiences with Isaignani.

Rajinikanth said he and Raja even used to drink together during the initial days of their career. “I used to call him Raja sir. Later, his costumes changed, his respect in the industry changed and he attained a transformation. After that, I started calling him Raja Swami. He’s a saint,” told Rajinikanth hinting at Raja’s interest in worldly things.

Kamal Haasan shared his widely-popular Hey Ram experience when Raja composed all songs of the film after they were shot. Now, the entire country is aware of the secret which only ardent fans of Kamal and Raja knew before. “Hey Ram is the first film for Raaj Kamal Films International without Ilaiyaraja. However, I felt something wrong with the songs towards the end of the shoot. I went back to Raja unblushingly. He asked me about the cost incurred for shooting all these songs. When I told him I would re-shoot all the songs with his new tunes, he said he’ll compose them with the exact lip-sync with what I’ve shot. Then he saw the edited footage and came up with fresh tunes,” revealed Kamal Haasan. He also expressed awe at Raja’s work in the film.

Kamal Haasan also revealed that he has always wanted to hug Ilaiyaraja he’s never done that in the last 35 years. “He’s always finicky. Shy. I’m glad I hugged him today,” he told.