Why 1992 is the year the song changed in India

If you are within a certain age bracket, then you probably recall your first encounter with the Roja soundtrack. I most certainly do. It was sometime in early 1993 when Surabhi, a hugely popular weekly cultural magazine show on Doordarshan, did a segment on a young music composer from Madras who had just been conferred with the National Award. The composer's name may or may not have registered, but his songs, even those 30-second clips, sure did. Those, of course, were pre-internet days and I had absolutely no idea how to get hold of a Tamil album in Shillong. Luckily,…