Author: Shamim Padamsee (756 words)
Ravi Shankar was born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury on 7 April 1920 in Varanasi to a Bengali Brahmin family. He was the youngest of seven brothers. His father, Shyam Shankar, was a barrister who worked in London. Can you imagine, Ravi Shankar met his father for the first time when he was 8 years old!
Everyday, as a child he would wake up to the sound of the aarti on the ghats of the Ganga. This instilled in him a deep love of music. He was a quick learner and soon, began to play a number of instruments.
As, a boy of 10 years, he went with his brother Uday Shankar to Paris to join his dance group. In Paris a whole new world of music opened up for him. He started to understand and appreciate Western classical music, jazz and cinema. He met great musicians and dancers, including Anna Pavlova, the famous Russian ballerina, the prima donna of The Swan Lake!
Whilst in Paris, he shortened name, Ravindra, to Ravi, which means, "sun".
And true to his new name, Indian music and instruments, especially the sitar, found their own place under the sun in the western world!
However, one day everything changed for him. His brother Uday Shankar, had persuaded Allaudin Khan, the great sarod player to tour Europe as a soloist along with them.
Shankar was fascinated by the great maestro. He began to take lessons from him. Seeing his interest and talent, Baba, as Allaudin Khan was affectionately known, offered to teach Shankar.
Shankar went to live with Baba’s family in Maihar, as, in the traditional gurukul system. Baba was a hard task-master. At the crack of dawn, the students had to assemble in the verandah whilst Baba, who was a great devotee of Goddess Saraswati, went up to the terrace and pay his respects to the goddess whose temple stood on an opposite hill. After that, he would settle on his rickety old cot, whilst his students sat on the floor in front of him doing their taaleem for hours on end.
Soon, Shankar had learnt to play not only the sitar but also the surbahar. He learned ragas and the musical styles dhrupad, dhamar and khyal. He was taught the techniques of the instruments - rudra veena, rubab, and sursingar.
And finally, six years later he had his first public performance on the sitar in December 1939 - a jugalbandi (duet) with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
After that, Raviji was unstoppable. He went on to win many national and international awards and also composed several new ragas, including Tilak Shyam, Nat Bhairav and Bairagi, which are still very popular. He also incorporated ragas from the South Indian Carnatic music.
Later, he moved to Mumbai and joined the Indian People's Theatre Association, for whom he composed music for ballets. He recomposed the music for the popular song "Sare Jahan Se Achcha" at the age of 25! He began to record music for HMV India and worked as a music director for All India Radio (AIR).
As luck would have it, one day, the director of AIR introduced the Western violinist Yehudi Menuhin to him.
Menuhin invited Shankar to perform in New York City.
Seeing the great interest in Indian music, Raviji, decided to take on the world! He toured the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States, educating the western audiences on classical India music.
No wonder he was invited to perform during the tenth anniversary of the United Nations and the UNESCO music festival in Paris - a great honour!
Even George Harrison, of the Beatles group, the heart-throb of millions of people all over the world became attracted to Raviji’s music and became his disciple.
Harrison’s wife once said, “His meeting with Ravi was not just between two individuals but of two cultures.”
The same year, the Beatles won the Grammy Award for
Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Ban, which included, "Within You Without
You" by Harrison, a song influenced by Indian classical music.
He opened a Western branch of his Kinnara School of Music in Los Angeles, California and also taught music in many universities of the USA
Raviji also performed at the Woodstock Music Festival, but the hippie culture did not appeal to him one bit.
“Get high on music,” Pandit Ravi Shankar always urged the audiences. And he did. Even at the age of 90 years one would often see him strumming the chords of the sitar in reyyaz.
