The great S P came into A R Rehman's studio and the first thing he said was 'How can this studio produce a cinematic song. So I smiled at him and he came back after the movie was released and said: 'You've proved music can be produced anywhere. It's what you do with it',"

Roja is a 1992 romantic thriller film written and directed by Mani Ratnam. It stars Arvind Swami and Madhubala, with the latter in the title role. It follows a simple girl from a village in Tamil Nadu, making desperate efforts to find her husband after he is kidnapped by militants during a secret undercover mission in Jammu and Kashmir. The theme of the film is based on the relationship between Savitri and Satyavan of the Hindu epic, Mahabharata.

The film was produced by K. Balachander under his Kavithalayaa Productions and distributed by G. Venkateswaran. The film's cinematography was handled by Santhosh Sivan and editing done by Suresh Urs. The film released on 15 August 1992, to positive reviews, receiving praise for its patriotic theme. The film was dubbed and released in Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Marathi languages.

The film won three National Film Awards, including Best Film on National Integration, catapulting Ratnam to national acclaim. The film also gained international acclaim with its nomination for Best Film at the 18th Moscow International Film Festival. The film was re-released for international audiences in light of the growing fear of terrorist attacks across the world. It is the first in Ratnam's trilogy of films, with the others being Bombay (1995) and Dil Se.. (1998), that depict human relationships against a background of Indian politics.

Roja is the debut soundtrack album of music composer A. R. Rahman, featuring lyrics by Vairamuthu. It is the soundtrack to the 1992 Tamil film of the same name, directed by Mani Ratnam, and starring Aravind Swamy and Madhoo. The album features seven tracks in Tamil and Hindi, and six tracks in Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi and five tracks in the instrumental adaptation album.

The song "Thamizha Thamizha" is a poem written by Subramanya Bharathi. "Chinna Chinna Aasai" was the first song Rahman had composed for the film. The song "Kadhal Rojave" has two versions in both Tamil and Hindi; a solo and a duet in the former. The Hindi version of the song was titled "Roja Jaaneman" has two versions - one by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and the other by Hariharan.

Released on Lahari Music, it was also listed in Time magazine's "10 Best Soundtracks" of all time. It also fetched the National Film Award for Best Music Direction for A. R. Rahman and the National Film Award for Best Lyrics for Vairamuthu.

The Tamil and Hindi versions of the album sold over 3 million units in India, with the Tamil version selling over 200,000 units and the Hindi version selling 2.8 million units. The Hindi version of the album earned ₹7.5 crore (equivalent to ₹46 crore or US$6.5 million in 2019) in sales.

Playback: . P. Balasubrahmanyam, K. S. Chithra

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