Making any school going boy or girl interested in a subject can be a real challenge. There are so many variables that can affect their engagement. But this Standard Eight student got immense interest and joy on listening to music when he visited AVM Recording Theatre in Chennai where his father was working at that time. This student was also a batchmate of the Oscar Award wining music director A.R. Rahman in the renowned Dhanraj Master’s class.
He is none other than K.Raj Bhaskar, who is fondly called as ‘One Day Bhaskar’ for his swift work in finishing Back Ground Score for any movie in a day. Born to S. Kalidoss and K.Pappaththi Ammal, Raj Bhaskar hails from Nagapattinam. It was his father Kalidoss who worked as a Sound Operator in the AVM Re-recording Theatre, found out Raj Bhaskar’s interest in music.
Here Raj Bhaskar narrates his success story: ‘I used to go to the AVM Re-recording Theatre to see my father when I was studying in school. I didn’t know at that time, but I was mesmerised by the music and the ambience of the recording theatre. One day my father asked me why I had come so early to the theatre. I told him ‘nothing pa’. After that he noticed me so closely on many occasions without telling me anything. And one fine day he told me to learn music. But I was hesistant in choosing instrument and again my father insisted me to learn Violin. I think he would have found out my inner nuance.
I went to Rajappa Master who was in the legend M.S. Viswanathan musical team for learning classical violin. Then I learnt western violin from the great Dhanraj Master. At this point of time, A.R.Rahman was learning key board. We used to spend more time and shared good rapport.
Music Directors Shankar-Ganesh sirs helped me a lot. It was Ganesh sir who took initiative to bring me on board in their team as a violinist. I was one among the violinists in the movie ‘Vaadakai Veedu’ starring Muthuraman sir. I am very much delighted to say that I was also in his team for the song ‘Pookkalaththan Parikkaatheenga….’ in the movie ‘Pookkalai Parikkatheergal. I was also in the violinist team under M.S.Viswanathan sir. Both M.S.V. sir and his assistant Joseph Krishna sir helped me a lot.
Later I was introduced as a music director for the Tamil movie ‘Therodum Veethiyile’ starring new comers. I am very glad and proud to inform that A.R.Rahman was playing keyboard in that film. My first Telugu movie as a music director was ‘Bethala Maanthrikudu’ in which renowned actor Narasimha Raju was the lead. I had also scored music for the Telugu movie ‘Seesa’ (released in 2016) in which famous Telugu actor Sivaji was the hero.
I must mention about music director (Tamil, Malayalam) S.P.Venkatesh for he who gave me a turning point in my life. I learnt nuances of music from him and at the same time I developed an art of finishing music within short period of time.
Then I started doing re-recording for languages viz Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada, Oriya, Bhojpuri and so far I have done 150 movies. Ilaiyathalapathi Vijay’s blockbuster movie ‘Kushi’ was remade in Bhojpuri and I did background score for that movie. I have also done BGM for ‘Agadam’ which got Guinness World Records for the longest uncut film category. More recently I have done BGM for ‘Nagesh Thiraiarangam’.
Whenever I am down, my father says: focus on your ambition. His words are always guiding me in all my endeavour. If you ask any artists, what would be your ambition? Then everyone will say ‘reach and communicate heterogenous audiences’ and I would say the same. Dedication is the key and I would say the new comers ‘Live Musically’.
Recently he received ‘Achievement Award’ for Background Score in more number of films in Kannada. This yearly award function was organised by Swathi Ambareesh under the Karnataka Kale Mathura Sadhane Academy.
More interestingly, Raj Bhaskar is the co-brother for famous actor M.S Bhaskar.