Mumbai: While singer-composer AR Rahman may be a global celebrity now, it was not always roses for him.

In a recent interview, the Slumdog Millionaire hitmaker shared his battle with 'not being good enough' and having suicidal thoughts. "Up until 25, I used to think about suicide. Most of us feel they are not good enough. Because I lost my father, there was this void... There were so many things happening" he said. 

The 51-year-old claims that since he started dabbling in music at an early age, he was saturated and jaded by the time he reached his twenties. "Everyone wondered 'How are you going to survive? You have everything, grab it.' I was 25 then. I couldn't do that. It's like eating everything. You become numb. So even if you eat small meals, make it fulfilling," he adds.

The turnaround for the 51-year-old composer came when he built his recording studio Panchathan Record Inn in his backyard in hometown Chennai.

Rahman also said that the experience made him braver. He said, "(But) that in a way made me more fearless. Death is a permanent thing for everyone. Since everything created has an expiry date, so why be afraid of anything?" 

The composer talks about hard times and other events in his life in Notes of a Dream: The Authorized Biography of AR Rahman written by author Krishna Trilok. The biography was launched in Mumbai on Saturday.

In his 20s, before he made his debut as a composer with Mani Ratnam's Roja (1992), Rahman along with his family embraced Sufi Islam. He reinvented himself by letting go not only the baggage from the past but also his birth name - Dileep Kumar, which he says, he despised.

"I never liked my original name, Dileep Kumar. I don't even know why I hated it. I felt it didn't match my personality. I wanted to become another person. I felt like that would define and change my whole (being). I wanted to get rid of all the past luggage," he says.