I spoke to Rehana and Ishraat. But not Fatima because she's quiet and away from all this. I did not get much information from his sisters. Ishraat did not speak much and Rehana just gave me the birthdays of all the family members.

What did his close associates have to say about him?

MK Arjunan is from the Malayalam film industry and worked with Rahman's father. He knew the family well and gave me a lot of information. Rahman's band members, John Anthony and Paul Jacob, also spoke to me. I met Subhash Ghai too. But the most valuable information came from the people who knew him as Dileep; those guys have given me a lot of interesting information.

Some people insisted that Rahman was very talkative as a teenager. But most of them say that he was shy. For example, if his band was touring, all the band members would change in the same room but Rahman never did that. But I saw, from my interaction with him, Rahman has a very nice sense of humour.

Where does the book start?

The book starts with Rahman's father -- how he was very poor and got a break into the Malayalam film industry as a music arranger, how he died of cancer, what effect that had on Rahman, how Rahman dealt with it and how he came up. It ends at the Oscars.