Pak artists ban: Music knows no country, says Ilaiyaraja

"In music, there is no country; there is no time... No nothing. Music is music," Ilaiyaraja told reporters during a news conference here yesterday.

Ilaiyaraja, 73, is currently on a tour of several US cities.

A day earlier he performed live in New Jersey, and his show was attended by thousands of Indian-Americans in a suburb of Washington DC, his first performance ever in the national capital area.

The tour has been organised to commemorate Ilaiyaraja's achievement of composing music for over thousand films, said Rjan Natarajan, a former Maryland Secretary of State and an official in the Clinton Campaign.

Ilaiyaraja refused to comment on his impression about A R Rahman, who at the beginning of his career worked with him.

"Why do you ask me (about A R Rahman)? You have the respect. You have an idea about him; you have it," he told a popular local Indian American television anchor when asked about AR Rahman.

"But you should not expect that I must have the same expression," Ilaiyaraja said.

Days after the Uri terrorist attack in which 18 Indian soldiers were killed, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had asked Pakistani actors to leave India within 48 hours. The threat came from Amey Khopkar of MNS Chitrapat Sena. 

• Ilaiyaraja
• Tamil songwriter