TUNE OF HER OWN

As she debuts as music composer, Khatija Rahman is determined to carve a path independent of her father's

- LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

It cannot be easy being Khatija Rahman—with all the comparisons with her father, the legendary A.R. Rahman, and the weight of expectation threatening to keel her over. Yet, Khatija’s spine is straight and her sight is fixed. Like her father, music for her too is oxygen, but the comparisons end there. Khatija believes in her own creative spirit and wants to stay independent. “I want my own music to speak,” she says. With her debut as a composer in Halitha Shameem’s Minmini, which released last month, Khatija has proved that her music cannot just speak, it can also beguile. Her compositions in Minmini do not resemble her father’s; there is a softness and silkiness to them. As composer, Khatija has arrived.

Clad in a red salwar, with a mask and a veil partially covering her face, it almost looks like Khatija hides behind her music. Yet, when she walks into THE WEEK’s office in Chennai, there is a spring in her step and a smile in her voice, as she tells us about how her style veers from her father’s, about her love for Lata Mangeshkar’s music, and about her own rise to fame as a singer.