A.R. Rahman has shared a rare and honest reflection about the moment Roja came into his life and how it completely changed his path. Speaking on the latest episode of People by WTF with Nikhil Kamath, the composer opens up about why Roja is more than just a debut album. For Rahman, it was the project that saved him from walking away from the film industry altogether.

During the conversation, Nikhil Kamath brings up the moment that shaped Rahman’s journey into becoming one of India’s most influential composers. Nikhil says, “your song Tu Hi Re, I think I must have heard that song through so many heartbreaks and falling in love.”

This leads Rahman to talk about Roja and the emotional turning point it created in his life. “Roja changed everything,” he says. At the time, Rahman was unsure whether he wanted to stay in the film industry. He reveals that while working on the movie, he had actually planned to quit films right after. “This will be my last movie,” he remembers thinking. His hesitation came from wanting to stay selective and avoid the pressures that once affected his father. He recalls how the industry had “consumed” his father, and he wanted to protect his own creative space.

Rahman then shares a conversation he had with Mani Ratnam during the making of Roja. He remembers telling the director, “I am very satisfied working with you. I don’t want to work with other people. I’ll just do jingles or private albums.” But Mani Ratnam gently encouraged him to expand his world. Mani told him, “No, you should work with everyone.” Rahman laughs as he looks back on it now, admitting that even after Roja became a sensation, “for the first ten years I still felt, ‘Okay, enough.’”

Rahman also speaks about the musical environment that existed before Roja. He explains that India had a “traditional kind of music, which is beautiful,” but he felt his own sensibility was different. This difference is what pushed him to create a new sound, one that blended Indian emotion with global influences and opened the doors to an entirely new era of music.