Veteran actor and theatre personality Girish Karnad recently criticized the Mozart of Madras AR Rahman at the All India Urdu Manch, which took place in Bangalore recently. He criticized AR Rahman of compromising on the importance of lyrics for the sake of his music. While appreciating AR Rahman at the same time, he said,” Rahman is a great musician, his orchestration is beautiful and overpowering, as a result of which one misses the beauty of lyrics that once defined songs in Bollywood.”

Lyricist Pa. Vijay while talking in support of the Oscar and Grammy Award winning musician said Rahman is extremely particular about the pronunciation of Tamil words in songs. He added that Rahman insists on perfect diction even in the case where the North Indian singers are used for Tamil tracks. AR Rahman’s fans and well-wishers took to social networking sites to express their support for him.

Girish Karnad is a contemporary writer, playwright, screenwriter, actor and director. He has also acted in many Tamil films like Hey Ram, Kadhalan, Minsara Kanavu and the recently released Mugamoodi to name a few. Few days back, he was in the news for calling Rabindranath Tagore a “second-rate playwright” which created a huge uproar in West Bengal.