MUMBAI: Now that A R Rahman has done what no music director in India has achieved in years, a long festival of sorts is in the making to celebrate his Oscar win.

Rahman would be visiting Thiruvananthapuram on 14 April (Vishu, Kerala new year) for a benefit concert for the rehabilitation of AIDS-afflicted children at the Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium as part of non-profit social organization Global Kerala Initiative. This charity show will be part of A R Rahman's world tour.

According to sources, a two-member team in charge of the technical and production aspects of the Rahman show landed in the city on Thursday on a one-day recce mission. Shailesh and Bharath, who have been associated with a number of Rahman shows during the last four years, visited the Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium, the main stage where Rahman will perform live. Both work for Rapport Productions, the event management company that organises Rahman's tours.

They inspected the venue, the stage position, ground, the natural acoustics of the stadium and its capacity and took stock of the facilities.

"We normally design the stage after taking a close look at the venue," said Bharath, who is in charge of production. When the team reached the stadium, a skeleton of a stage was already there, apparently, used for a channel presentation at the West end facing the Palayam mosque.

The stage will be 100 feet wide and 70 feet long and roofless. Except for these basic facts, both Shailesh and Bharath are in the dark about Rahman's plans.

"We don't know what Rahman has in mind, this is the first show after the Oscars. He would definitely want to give this show a completely new feel, something that has never been experienced before. He might even have a unique theme for the show. It's Rahman, anything is possible," Shailesh said.

Normally, a Rahman show will have ten big singers and 40-odd musicians. "However, for this show, we feel it might be bigger. We will get a clear idea after we meet the man himself," he added.

While Rahman performs live at the Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium, the performance will be simultaneously projected at two other venues in the city. "Rahman himself will reveal the two additional venues when he flies down to Kochi on a day between March 5 and 10 to formally announce the show," Shailesh said.

Rahman hysteria continues, CMU goes a step ahead of Oscars

While reports in media suggested that Rahman's Oscar trophies  will be exempted from customs (Rs 25,000 each), back home, the Cine Musicians' Union (CMU) with over 1,500 members would be gifting Rahman a three kg silver memento costing an estimated Rs 300,000.

Cine Musicians' Union (CMU) that represents the South Indian cinema (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada) felicitated Rahman upon his return to Chennai on 1 March.
The three kg silver memento of the shape of a globe with the etched logo of the body (CMU) was presented to Rahman by legendary Carnatic musician M Balamuralikrishna in the presence of music directors M S Vishwanathan, Ilayaraja and singer S P Balasubramanian. A special 'chariot' was also made to ferry Rahman from the airport on his arrival.