(Pippa Hindi Album) Build software like A. R. Rahman creates music

A. R. Rahman continues to inspire how I approach Software Development & Architecture @ snowpal.com and beyond! Here’s how.

It’s a lot easier to be stoked about your first job when compared to the next one, or the one after that, or the 50th one in your career. But what separates you from others is whether you commit yourself to the 50th client exactly the same way as you did to the very first. Despite the circumstances. Regardless of the market. Irrespective of everything else that may be happening in your life.

If you are anything like me, you would understand things quicker with a simple, relatable example. That brings me to Oscar & Grammy winner A. R. Rahman’s latest album, Pippa.

Every song, note, instrumentalist, singer and instrument appear to be treated with the exact same respect as his very first release way back in ‘92 (Tamil movie: Roja). I’ve to believe that such a thing hardly happens when one is chasing fame, money or respect. It probably happens ever so gracefully, and almost definitively, when one is truly & honestly chasing their hero that they will never ever be — themselves (Google Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar speech).

Think about it — he’s working with singers and musicians from his next generations. Everything has changed — technology, people’s tastes and expectations, climate, laws, and what not. Yet, he’s able to keep pace. I meant — set the pace.

If I extrapolated this loosely and with plentiful writer-freedom to the world of software development, a lot has changed in the world of engineering since Roja released in ‘92. And I am not even referring to AI. Even before Sam, and the last weekend, plenty had changed. How we go about building software today is completely different from how it was done at that time. So, if you are someone who wrote your first line of code when “Chinna Chinna Asai” changed a lot of musical interests in India forever, and are still writing code today, you ought to have been chasing more than money. I am quite confident you are also chasing your hero who you will never be (or want to be, per Matthew M).

I am chasing my hero too.

Note that you don’t need to know who he is (if you already don’t), where he lives, or what he composes, or how he does what he does to enjoy his latest release, or any of his previous releases.

(Disclaimer: I’ve no clue what the movie is about, didn’t read up on that as I don’t really watch Bollywood movies, & the limited Hindi I do know doesn’t lend me the luxury to understand the lyric).