Father’s Grammy bitter-sweet moment for us: Anoushka

Anoushka Sharma and Norah Jones received the honour on their father’s behalf.

MUMBAI:

Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar’s double win at the 55th Grammy awards this year, will remain a bitter-sweet memory for his musician-daughters Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones. Anoushka, a sitar player herself, is planning a “belated effort” to hold a memorial for her father in New Delhi.

“I am very grateful that he got to know he was going to receive the Grammy before he died. Sadly, he wasn’t there to personally receive it. So, it was a very bitter-sweet moment for us,” said Anoushka.

Ravi Shankar died in December 2012 at the age of 92 following a heart surgery in California. He won the best world music album Grammy for The Living Room Sessions Part 1, spanning a wide range of Indian classical styles, and he was also honoured with a post-humous Lifetime Achievement Award at the event in Los Angeles on February 10.

Anoushka and Norah received the honour on their father’s behalf.

“The feelings I went through were mixed. It was an incredibly wonderful thing to see him honoured this way. We were all incredibly proud,” said Anoushka, on receiving the award on her father’s behalf.

“I do feel there’s a legacy to be passed on and shared with others. I am conscious that there are generations after me who haven’t grown up with the iconic figure of my father in their lives,” she continued. “And it’s very important for my father’s music to go out in the world and in that sense I do feel I have a responsibility of sharing his music with people.”



When asked whether the passing of the iconic figure brought her and Norah closer together, she said, “Not really. Over the years, we have been incredibly close. I am grateful to have a sister to share all this with though. It would have been more difficult to go through this phase alone.”

How much of a sitar player is Norah? “She is not! You should ask her this, she doesn’t play the sitar. In fact she is quite shocked by how difficult it is to play the sitar,” said Anoushka.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2013.

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