Ilayaraja

The event this week to commemorate Ilayaraja's completion of a 1000 movie scores was personally supervised by Amitabh Bachchan.

That is how we saw Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, with Sridevi thrown in, on the same platform.

Apparently, the two Tamil superstars were hesitant to share the same platform.

"Even for Ilayaraja whom both Rajniji and Kamalji revere, they were not willing to come together on the same platform to honour him," says an insider.

It was a call to each from Amitabh Bachchan that did the trick.

Says the insider, "Bachchan Saab rang up Rajniji and Kamalji and told them how much their presence mattered on that special evening honouring the living legend of Tamil film compositions."

Sridevi too received a personal invitation from Amitabh Bachchan. And Gulzar who seldom attends any event, was gently reminded by the Big B of the Sadma connection between Ilaya Sir and Gulzar Saab."

Balki asserts, "The entire evening was planned personally by Mr Bachchan. He was as excited as a child putting the event together to honour Raja Sir. The invitees were personally called up and left with no choice but to attend."

The entire Bachchan family was on attendance at the function. Apparently, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who was shooting for Sanjay Gupta's Jazbaa took time off from her shooting to attend.

Regrettably some illustrious artistes associated with Ilayaraja could not attend.

"We wanted Lataji and Ashaji. But Ashaji was in Dubai and Lataji's health did not permit her to attend," says Balki.

Music maestro Ilayaraja is a living legend whose music has touched chords beyond barriers and Shamitabh is a special film for the music director. The reason is that Shamitabh is the 1000th film for which Ilayaraja will be giving music to and to mark this occasion, friend and filmmaker R. Balki has decided to keep an event, a felicitation of sorts for the musical genius.

However, the event will turn even more special when other legends that include megastars Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth and Amitabh Bachchan will come for the event and we hear that the trio has given a nod for the same. Ilayaraja has been associated with Balki's previous films which include Cheeni Kum and Paa . It is also being said that many celebrities will be performing during this event and a special act will be put up by Amitabh Bachchan along with his Shamitabh co-star Dhanush and Big B will also be singing a song that he has sung for the film.

"They were like two excited school children," says R Balki who has the rare distinction of bringing together the two stalwarts, actor Amitabh Bachchan and the music composer Ilayaraja together, twice over.

The Big B sang for Ilayaraja in Balki's Paa . Now again the iconic star has sung song entitled ' Piddly ' for the legendary composer in the filmmaker's forthcoming film Shamitabh . Says Balki, "I consider myself very lucky. I think there are only two human institutions in the Indian entertainment world. One is Amitji and the other is Raja Sir.And I've worked with both in all my three feature films so far." Balki says Big B and the composing maestro were a riot together. "They are exactly the same age, 73. And they werelike two excited children in the recording room running riot in a toyshop. Their level of enthusiasm and passion to excel made me feel very old." Apparently both Ilayaraja and Amitabh Bachchan share a mutual fan club.

Says Balki, "They both admire one another's works tremendously. Amitji who has sung songs for many composers (Rajesh Roshan, Shiv-Hari, Aadesh Shrivastava, R D Burman, Kalyanji-Anandji) says singing for Raja Sir was a dream come true. Amitji remembers each and every song that Raja Sir has composed in Hindi cinema." At the moment Balki is in Chennai recording the background music for Shamitabh with Ilayaraja. "What he does to cinema is not just add music. He lends an added dimension to the plot."

If you are one of those die hard music lovers who grew up listening to the likes of Appu Raja, Sadma, Shiva, Anjali, Cheeni Kum, Paa and others, then, the very name of the music maestro Ilayaraja will surely ring a (musical) bell in your ears. He is the same music composer whose smash hit track 'Rakkama Kaiyathattu' from the Tamil film Dalapati has been listed as one among world's top ten songs by BBC.

Well, the not-so-good news is that he suffered from chest pain yesterday while he was practicing for a function which is to be held on December 28. He was then immediately hospitalized in Apollo Hospital, Chennai. As per the latest reports, he is stable now and is likely to be discharged soon.

We wish the ailing musician a speedy recovery.

After a reigning career in Tamil films, Dhanush entered Bollywood with Sonam Kapoor starrer Raanjhanaa which became a huge success at the box office. And now taking his victory a step further, the actor will be doing his next with none other than the legendary Amitabh Bachchan. The film will be directed by R Balki.

Ilayaraja will be giving the music for the film, making it hat-trick collaboration with Balki-Amitabh after Paa and Cheeni Kum . Confirming about his next big ticket in Bollywood, Dhanush posted on his Twitter handle saying, "Yes guys, my next Hindi film is with Balki sir. Very excited and eagerly looking forward to it :) thanks for all your wishes. Privileged to share screen space with Big B himself. Ecstatic 2 be part of Raja Sir's musical again." However, the rest of the details of the star cast are still being kept under wraps.