AR Rahman works for free in K Manjus Kannada film

Oscar winning music maestro AR Rahman, who reportedly charges a fortune to score music for a film, has worked in K Manjus Kannada remake of Tamil blockbuster Varalaaru for free, according to reports. The news has been confirmed by the producer, Manju, who said, "Rahman did not charge a penny for the film titled Godfather. You can say he did it for free as he didn't charge anything for himself. He charged, approximately a crore, only for the studio, artists, instruments, recording and re-recording of the film." Explaining the reason behind this generous act of the Mozart of Madras, Manju said, He didn't compose all the tracks from scratch as they were lifted from the Tamil version. So, the majority of the tracks for the film remain the same. He only composed two new tracks. Also, the length of the Kannada footage is slightly shorter than the Tamil version. The other reason is that this is a goodwill gesture on Rahman's part for the Kannada audience." The filmmaker also dismissed the allegations leveled at Rahman that he charges exorbitant amount of money for his work. "Rahman cannot sign projects left, right and centre. He has to keep up his quality work. He spent six months working on the music score for Godfather," the filmmaker said. The master composer has also expressed happiness over working in a Kannada film. "I worked with Kannada composers like Hamsalekha and Vijaya Anand as an arranger and visited the Chamundi studios. So there's lot of history in Bangalore and I'm glad to be back here," he said.