Rajasaranam...why bother talking abt ARR's career...he is a true talent and has shown his mastery of electronica or the keyboard in film music....while IR was WCM ARR is electronica..lets leave it here....what we should be talking about is HJ,YSR and the current lot..ARR and IR have gone way too ahead to be discussed.
At that time IR would not have had the hindi media turning on him as HFM themselves were on a high with naushad ali and co.....but when ARR took over the HFM were down and when someone introduces a totally different genre and that too of electronica whose most famous composer is vangelis it will really turn heads. Thats how you can compare both their starts.
Now lets stop with these two..both are proven musicians not developing musicians to still be talked about...talk about others please :D