Yes, for the last time. In the last 30 days, I have heard and argued with at least 3 different people (who do not know each other) about how the Garden Vareli TVC jingle was not composed by A.R.Rahman. They were 100% sure it was by Rahman! A simple Google search (See , and !) too seems to indicate that this has become something of an urban legend!
I pointed them out to of A.R.Rahman’s Roja, in 2011, where I had mentioned about my misunderstanding that it was composed by Louis Banks. It wasn’t.
So, let me state it here unambiguously, to ensure that people credit the right composers.
The original Garden Vareli TV advertisement, by the agency Rediffusion, had a jingle that was very Indian. It was based on Desh raaga and was composed by Vanraj Bhatia. This is the one.
Then, there was a second version of the jingle in a new advertisment featuring Lisa Ray. This one was very popular in the period just before Roja (1992) and hence was commonly assumed to be by A.R.Rahman since the most notable vocal humming seems very similar to the opening humming of Kaadhal Rojave (Roja Jaaneman). The jingle was NOT composed by A.R.Rahman. It was by Ranjit Barot.
There was another variant of the advertisment, featuring Madhu Sapre, and the jingle was midly modified too, again, by Ranjit Barot.
