What was the earlier name of the music director A.R. Rahman?

Explanation

Dileep Kumar. A.R. Rahman was born on 6 January 1967 in Chennai (then Madras) as A.S. Dileep Kumar. In the late 1980s, after a difficult period in the family's life, he and his family turned to Sufism and converted to Islam, and he took the name Allah Rakha Rahman, which is shortened to A.R. Rahman.

Rahman's father, R.K. Shekhar, was a composer and arranger for Malayalam films. He died when Rahman was about nine years old, and the family faced financial difficulties. Rahman began working as a keyboard player at a young age, playing for composers such as Ilaiyaraaja, and he also studied Western classical music at Trinity College London through a scholarship. He composed music for advertisements before making his debut as a film composer with Mani Ratnam's Tamil film "Roja" (1992), which won him the National Film Award for Best Music Direction. He went on to compose for famous films such as "Bombay", "Dil Se", "Taal", "Lagaan", "Rang De Basanti", "Jodhaa Akbar" and "Rockstar". He is popularly known as the "Mozart of Madras" and "Isai Puyal" (Musical Storm). In 2009, he won two Academy Awards (Oscars) for the film "Slumdog Millionaire", for Best Original Score and Best Original Song ("Jai Ho"), and in 2010 he won two Grammy Awards for the same film. He received the Padma Shri (2000) and the Padma Bhushan (2010).

Why not the other options?

R.K. Shekhar was A.R. Rahman's father, a composer for Malayalam films.

Ilaiyaraaja is a legendary Tamil film composer, for whom Rahman worked as a keyboard player.

Allah Rakha Qureshi is the full name of Ustad Alla Rakha, the tabla maestro and father of Zakir Hussain, who is a different person.