You learn to compartmentalise:
When I work there (in the west), I feel excited. When I work here (in India), I feel excited. After a while, you learn to compartmentalise and use all the inputs to create a new kind of product. As long as I create music anywhere, I am in great spirits.

Times of India, May 3, 2010

As a composer, I have often felt that life’s experiences — both good and bad — have greatly added to my compositions.

ITIMES, Dec. 30, 2006

What cannot be put into words can be expressed through music.

ITIMES, Dec. 30, 2006

I like music that is able to stir my soul. My music is a spiritual exercise.

The Hindu. Dec. 25, 2004

Singing requires a totally different energy. I’m more interested in composing than singing. I used to have a complex about my voice, until I heard the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I felt that if he could create wonders with his voice, I could also try.

Bollyvista.com Interview by Jyothi Venkatesh, 2004

The melody remains the core of the song. No melody, no song. I don’t think rap can sustain a two-hour musical.

BBC South Asia, Feb. 4, 2004

Roja changed my career. I had been doing the same kind of stuff for 15-16 years and was desperately seeking a change. But there was no opportunity to reinterpret Indian music. With Roja, we wanted to strike a new note. Mani’s amazing visuals, Mutthu’s romantic lyrics, relatively unknown singers… we wanted to impart to Roja an international flavour — and we succeeded.

In Tune With Life: Times of India, Sept. 2002

I am trying my best to combine traditional and contemporary styles. But sometimes the result isn’t in my hands at all. It depends on the film and the director. Trends come and go but I have to keep doing my own thing. You have to learn from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is only teacher and that is your soul.

Citation pending.

I don’t think growing as a composer has anything to do with making your compositions more complicated. At the same time, I don’t believe in not learning while composing. There should be a balance between the composer’s intrinsic knowledge and the requirements of the specific score.

I simply move on after completing a score. Now I’ve forgotten Taal, Takhshak and Dil Hi Dil Mein. Now I’m thinking about what I can do in this millennium. Once I’m finished with a score there’s nothing more I can do with or about it — good bad or ugly. Maybe I’ll return to my scores ten years from now. Right now I’ve new challenges to face, so my priority is the next score, not the last one.

Times of India, Jan. 22, 2000

I find myself stuck between the traditional and modern styles of music. From the age of 11, I was working with musicians of the earlier eras. So I’ve imbibed their influences. Until my late teens, I was meeting the maturer generation of musicians. Then I came into jingles composition and eventually film composition with Roja I was suddenly exposed to the `in’ scene and the hip-crowds.

Times of India, Jan. 22, 2000

Everything depends on your attitude. If you treat a jingle composition as joke, it is going to sound like one. But if you take it seriously and work on it, concentrating on every second of the 60 seconds, it is going to last.

I take the same attitude when composing a song. I concentrate on each section of the song. It can be a burden, but it also brings joy when people notice the little surprises in each song. They may hear it 10 times over and yet discover new things in it.

Star Plus (‘Is Duniya ke Sitaare’), Jan. 26, 1999

If an album is to please all age groups. it has to go beyond current fads.

India Today, 1999

I don’t endorse remix music because I believe in pure music. Nobody has the right to meddle with any other person’s music.

Times of India, 1997

Composing a peppy number like ‘Muqabla’ is easy. I just have to be spontaneous, let myself go. It’s like gorging on Chinese food once a month. But melodies, like ‘Chhotisi asha’, ‘Chandralekha’ and ‘Ennavale’ [‘Sun ri sakhi’ from ‘Humse hai Muqabla’] were more difficult… ‘Ennavale’ was inspired by a song which is 2000 years old. For the songs of ‘Yodha (1992)’ [his sole malayalam effort], I did a lot of research in Nepali and Chinese music. I know ‘Ennavale’ and the songs from ‘Roja’ and ‘Puthiya Mugam’ will be hummed for decades.

Filmfare, 1996