Rejection may just be a stop sign – Jai Ho story

We talked about stop signs very recently. A rejection even from someone who is accomplished can dampen anyone’s spirits. However, the reasons for rejections can be many.  If what you have created is valuable and awesome, the reason for rejection is generally, the fit. What you brought to the table may just not be right for the project at hand. This was really the case for Jai Ho.

Jai Ho is the song from Slum Dog Millionaire which won an Oscar for supe talented A. R. Rahman. However, the song was originally composed for a movie called Yuvraj which was a project by celebrated movie maker Subhash Ghai. Ghai rejected the song for his movie. When Danny Boyle liked the song, A.R.Rahman and Subhash Ghai had a discussion and Ghai was happy to let Boyle have that song for Slum Dog Millionaire.

The rest is history.

For a refresher on the song, here it is:

Here is the Pussycat Dolls version:

And, last but not the least, it was the song for a flash mob by talented Infosys Pune employees:

For those of you who didn’t see Slumdog Millionaire, as you can see from the video above, it was not in the main movie. It was shown in the end during the credits.

Moral of the story: If you truly believe (and validate) that you have created something awesome, don’t let a rejection stop you for longer than it’s required.