Kuselan Audio Release - 30/06/08.

Tewnty one-year old G V Prakash could not have asked for more! At such a young age, he got a chance to compose music for the superstar of Tamil cinema, Rajnikanth.

The icing on the cake was the presence of his illustrious uncle, A R Rahman at the Tamil as well as Telugu films' (Kadhanayakudu) audio launch on Monday.

Prakash also got country's best singers -- Shankar Mahadevan, Chitra and Sadhana Sargam -- to sing for him. What many don't know is that Daler Mehndi has sung the title song -- his first for a Tamil film.

It is interesting to note that Big Music bought the audio rights of Kuselan for a whopping Rs 2.2 crore, the highest for a Tamil album. The previous highest was for Rahman's Sivaji, again a Rajnikanth film.

It was Sreenivasan, the scriptwriter of the original Malayalam film Kadha Parayumbol, which inspired the Tamil and Telugu remakes, who as a tribute to his friend Suresh Chandran, lent Rs 75 so that he could pursue acting at the Film Chamber Institute in Chennai.

As the film celebrates friendship, the idea behind the audio release was also about paying tribute to the same. All the dignitaries -- K Balachander, P Vasu, Prakash, and Rajnikanth -- presented a copy of Kuselan's CD to their best friends.

K Balachander, the man behind Kavithalaya (one of the producers of Kuselan and Kadhanayakudu) gave a beautiful speech after handing over the CD of Kuselan to his best friend, director Bharatiraja.

"You need friends of your own age. And you make friends when you play tennis, cards or at a party. As I don't do any of these things, I don't have many friends. People my age are not there now, and those younger to me always keep me at a distance," said KB in his inimitable style.

Bharatiraja after accepting the CD said, "this is even precious than my Padmashree."

K Balachander fondly remembered a teenage music composer called A R Rahman when he first came to compose songs for his first film Roja, which was produced by Kavithalaya and directed by Mani Ratnam.

"At that time itself, I called Rahman a child prodigy. When I heard China Chinna Aasai, I told Mani Ratnam that it would be the song of the decade but it turned out to be the song of the century!

"But today's hero is another young man from the same family, who has inherited the music genius from his uncle. Prakash, is also another prodigy and today is his day."

Of Rajnikanth, KB fondly said, "People say I discovered Rajni but that is not true. I helped him discover himself. I would say Rajni is a black diamond I discovered three decades ago."

In turn, an emotional Rajni said, "KB Sir is my Appa, Amma and Guru."