Our Oscarahman moment!

Rahman, After The Oscars
I spoke to Rahman minutes after he received the award and was surprised when he thanked me instead. He said, ���Thank you, man,��� and I was like, ���I should thank you, Rahman. You���ve done something for every Indian.��� And he replied, ���No, thank each person from me. This wouldn���t have been possible without what each and every Indian has done for me.��� His mother and sister, who are also there with him, are ecstatic.In fact, his mother was the one who called me. I���d say that his mother deserves the award more than he does because he is what his mother made him. She told me that she has never felt happier in her entire life.
Sivamani, percussionist and member of Rahman���s band Roots
Rahman, Before The Oscars
I am absolutely thrilled. I chatted with him for half an hour the night before the ceremony. He sounded a little nervous. Not very nervous, but a little nervous, yes. Rahman is a very calm guy otherwise. I mean, if I were in his shoes, I wouldn���t have been able to sleep in anticipation. So, when I was speaking to him yesterday, he said that he was having a little problem being completely at rest. I quoted to him his own words ��� that once the work is done, it���s done. From there, you have to move on and if the work is good, it will be recognised. So when I said this, Rahman said that he knew and he understood and he was trying to stay calm and go to sleep! For Rahman, the Oscars don���t mean the end of the world, but they do mean a lot.
Prasoon Joshi, lyricist, who���s worked extensively with Rahman, from the US
���This is the climax of them all���
Hollywood, step aside ��� India���s finally arrived. The freshness and vivid emotions of Slumdog Millionaire proved a welcome tonic to musty old Hollywood as Danny Boyle���s love story dominated the Academy Awards yesterday, with eight prizes ��� for best picture, best director, best film editing, best sound mixing, best adapted screenplay, best song, best cinematography and best original score.
The audience at the Kodak Theatre in the US leapt to its feet to honour Danny and his team, as AR Rahman and Anil Kapoor shared the stage with Irrfan Khan, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, co-director Loveleen Tandan, the film���s technicians and its disarming child stars.
���In culture, fusion is a wonderful thing,��� said Danny after his win. The awards also rained down on a deserving Rahman, who took two awards, for best song (O Saya) and best original score. Rahman also performed Jai Ho! and O Saya, accompanied by a drum ensemble, vocalist Maryam Toller, and a troupe of local Indian-American dancers clad in hot pink.
���This is the most important one, the climax of them all,��� Rahman said on the Red Carpet, on the way inside the theatre. ���All of the people in India wish me love. I want them not to be heartbroken if I don���t get it, and I want them to enjoy it if I get it.��� Later, backstage, he confided, ���I had low expectations when I came to the Oscars!���
Anil observed, ���It���s great, especially, to see the small films which have made it. It���s a great year for world cinema and a great year for independent cinema.���
Straight from LA
The child actors who starred in Slumdog ��� Rubiana Ali, Tanay Chheda, Tanvi Lonkar, Madhur Mittal and Azharuddin Ismail ��� drew rapturous applause on the Red Carpet, and Chheda even showed reporters a small autograph book that he���d taken along on his trip. ���So far I���ve got James Bond, Brad Pitt...,��� he gushed, just before Meryl Streep swept by in a dove gray silk gown. The kids pounced on her and Chheda insisted she sign his autograph book, and she obliged with a laugh and hugs all around.
���I wasn���t sure if the kids were coming,��� said Danny Boyle. ���You worry about little kids, and what it���s going to do to their minds. But it���s an extraordinary experience. Someone said to me, ���You���ve just got to let them deal with it. It���ll be a memory for their whole lives.������ Boyle added, ���It is a love story, but it is heavily disguised. What I loved about his script was this: apparently, the spine of the story appears to be a gameshow, but as you peel that back, it���s a love story, which is deeper and more profound than a gameshow. It���s a chance to let yourself get lost in romance.���
Producer Christian Colson added backstage, ���America is changing. From the moment we started making the film to now, America is cool again. Not because of this, but it���s a symptom of how America is ready to embrace a global project like this one.��� Colson also lightheartedly rubbished rumours that Dev Patel and Freida Pinto had become romantically linked. ���Dev and Freida have been extraordinary, shouldering the responsibility to promote the film. We���ve seen them grow up before our eyes. The rumours are definitely not true ��� unless they���re lying to us!��� Slumdog���s phenomenal success has mirrored its protagonist Jamal Malik���s own rags-to-riches story.
On the whole, though, the Oscars were a lukewarm affair this year. The acting awards were presented in fawning, interminable tributes from former winners to this year,s nominees; while the musical numbers that weren���t inspired by Bollywood were embarrassingly old-fashioned, performed by overexposed artists such as Beyonce (yes, her again) and host Hugh Jackman in top hats.
A short film shot in India also took home an Oscar. Smile Pinki is Megan Mylan���s portrait of a young girl from Uttar Pradesh born with a cleft palate who is transformed by an operation by Dr Subodh Kumar Singh from the charity Smile Train.
���Documentary filmmakers, like journalists, are always looking for characters that are going to convey the larger story. We knew as soon as we met Pinki that she had so much internal beauty. Once Dr Subodh was done with her, she was truly beautiful from head to toe.���
British actor of Indian descent Ben Kingsley, who had won an Oscar for his portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi (which also won eight Oscars), laughed when he was told that his 2008 comedy, The Love Guru, had taken a prize as the Worst Film of the Year in the Golden Raspberry Awards, presented the night before the Oscars. ���Fantasic, oh wow, that���s great! I���m delighted. Any award is great!��� said Kingsley.
Lisa Tsering/India-West
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