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Chidanand Rajghatta
WASHINGTON, Oct 22: The morning her debut CD was hitting the stores this past Tuesday, Anoushka Shankar actually went to school. No launch party, no back-to-back interviews, no hoopla for this 17-year old daughter of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.
``I caught a cold. And besides, it was no big deal. The recording was the real thing, not the launch,'' she drawled in her SoCal (Southern California) accent in an interview with The Indian Express from her San Diego home.Oh, big deal it is in the music world. Even in the United States. Especially in the United States. It's not everyday that Pandit Ravi Shankar launches a disciple, even if it is his daughter. Especially his daughter. And when did you last hear of a female sitarist?
Even if you did, nothing like this one. Someone who listens to Madonna, Metallica and Alanis Morrissette. Plays Debussy in concert level piano. Enjoys watching Hitchcock and reading Bronte sisters. And writes poetry like any good 17-year old.
``Of course I am a serioussitarist. A serious classical sitarist,'' she protests. ``But ask me what I will be doing next time this year, and I can't promise you anything.''
Her modesty and nonchalance appear a trifle misplaced. Anoushka's debut CD, simply titled Anoushka, was released on Tuesday by Angel Records to gushing acclaim from the music industry here, which knows her father as a guru of the Beatles among other things.
``We see her an artist... of the future. You never know where her talents could take her,'' Angel's Senior vice-president Gilbert Heatherwick told Billboard magazine. Her proud father tuned in: ``From the moment I put her hand on the sitar until now, I have been her only teacher. But she has own special touch, a gift that is God-given.''
She must have. Considering that unlike her father, a slave to perfection who sometimes put in 18 hours of practice a day, she barely manages a couple of hours on weekdays and longer stints on the weekend. But then, she is a regular teenager, a SoCalgirl.
School, movies, hanging out...
Born in London to Pandit Ravi Shankar and Sukanya, Anoushka began playing only when she was nine. Her debut performance in 1995 was in Delhi, which is the Shankars home in winter. But since then she has performed with him all over the world among other dazzling stars.
Last year, she performed her father's Concerto No 1 for Sitar and Orchestra with the London Symphony Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. In June this year, she featured with Alice Coltrane, widow of the jazz great John Coltrane, and her son Ravi Coltrane, who was named after Anoushka's father.
Her public performances have drawn modest to rave reviews. Last month, she was on stage accompanying her father at New York's Carnegie Hall before Prime Minister Vajpayee.
The New York Times music critic wrote, ``When father and daughter played last speedy melody together, she kept up with him note for note until he broke away to harmonise with her. Mr Shankar's daughter is no means his equal, but he seemedproud both as a father and a teacher.''
Proud he certainly is. In a recent interview to Village Voice, he said tutoring his own daughter was a new experience for him -- ``like moulding soft wax instead of a hard rock.''
From all accounts he is a relaxed taskmaster, allowing his gifted pupil to do all the other things a typical teenager would do -- hang out with friends, write poetry and listen to alternative stuff. ``He's really cool. He understands I can't give up my other life,'' says Anoushka.
The ``other life'' is hip, even grunge, SoCal teenage lifestyle where pierced belly buttons and black lipstick are di rigeur. She wanted to supplant her traditional nosering with more bizarre accoutrements but backed off after a domestic shelling. Still, last year she managed to dye her hair blue -- it turned purple. The latest outrage: shearing her hair to a boy cut.
``Best to do all these things right now in my youth. Can't afford to later on,'' she giggled.
She studies at the San DieguitoAcademy, an alternative school where she had done fun classes like dance, ceramics and drawing, and hopes to enrol into a self-defence class shortly. Despite the American veneer and outlook, she is Indian deep within, often lapsing into desi lingo. At home, she speaks to her mother in Tamil when she does not want her father to understand -- and in French to her father when she wants to keep amma out of the loop.
Outside the music world, and yet within, her favourite people remain Yehudi Menuhin and Uncle George. Uncle George? Yeah, Uncle George -- aka George Harrison of the Beatles. The one who sang Norwegian Wood (``So completely out of tune''). Her own favourite is Here Comes the Sun.
Sure thing. Here's comes sun's daughter.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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