Today, NPR’s Morning Edition surprised me with a lovely present, though it wasn’t my birthday they were celebrating. Ravi Shankar is 85 today, and the story I blasted on my way to work was produced in honour of that.
In the latest report for the NPR/National Geographic co-production Radio Expeditions, NPR’s Susan Stamberg travels to New Delhi, the capital of India, to meet with the artist…
…Shankar is totally in his element when he performs — sitting on his oriental rug, sitar nestled in his lap, the air scented with incense, he appears lost in a trance.
“Ravi Shankar’s music is like a fine Indian sari — silken, swirling, exotic,” Stamberg says. “It can break your heart with its beauty.”
Oy, Ms. Stamberg…we could’ve done without the dreaded “E”-bomb, but we forgive you.
SM readers (and Mutineer Manish) might enjoy the legend’s take on why he is known as “Pandit”; personally, I was more amused by the piece’s description of Shankar’s wife as one “…in a crowd of Ravi’s lovers”. Ahem. No sex please, we’re Indian. Wait, too late for that–listeners are treated to Sukanya Shankar (“Ravi’s merry, dimpled wife”) trilling, “what you do to me!” in answer to a befuddled/barely-risque question that her husband poses.
Oh and yes, there is the obligatory Norah Jones ref; they played a snippet of “Don’t know why”, since THAT wouldn’t be predictable, at ALL. 😀
Enjoy the interview (and some “pillow talk”) here. :+:
Before I needlessly get barbecued via comments section for the title of this post, LISTEN to the story I linked and then mutter, “Ohhhhhh!” under your breath, thanks.
I’m no fan of cats, but my iPod serves up the pun-dit often, much to my delight. Anoushka, too. Norah? Eh. Not so much. 😉
So Anna thinks its cooler that she listens to Anoushka but not Ms Jones ? Im afraid her musical tastes are quite bad – the spoilt brat with barely adequate sitar strumming skills would be nowhere near the stage without her famous papa’s name. Norah made it on her own, with more authenticity in her songs than in all of Ms Shankar’s bland but well-rehearsed alaps.
I wonder if there any more illegitimate children out there.
I wonder if he threads or uses a Mach 3
I wondered whether PB had any shame… oops, no longer 🙂
I believe he has one other daughter from a relationship with an American woman. This daughter is an adult now, and lives in France, but I can’t remember her name.
uh, you obviously have some wierd taste in music if you think anna’s taste in music is quite bad. it’s like one of the best things about her. plenty of people have said as much on her blog. norah jones isn’t all that. plenty of people aren’t in to her, me included. not everyone thinks like you or likes like you. guess what, that’s okay.
I was skeptical of Norah and avoided her, when she started on the scene. Later I found Norah imminently talented. She will do better once/if she breaks out of current mold.
Imminently talented? She’s about to be really good?
MV, uh…duh. that’s what they said.
😉
Why the personal attacks on A N N A? So you disagree with her musical choices, just say so. When Abhi endorses something, nobody makes their disagreements with him personal. Why such preposterously personal peevishness with the palindromic blogger?
Is it just me, or does “Ravi’s merry, dimpled wife” Sukanya Shankar (pictured above) bear a rather striking resemblance to the controversially-talented Ms. Jones?
Sorry, for some reason that last link goes to microsoft, instead of to This picture.
http://geocities.com/narendrakotiyan
About Anoushka Shankar before she met Ravi Shankar- she had another caring “father” who has been erased from history!
Woah – is that a website set up by the man who raised her as her father when she was young?
This web site was originally set up to allow Anoushka to see pictures of her childhood, pictures that would probably have never reached her. It was put together by friends of her childhood “father” who was erased from her life after his usefulness was over and Mr Shankar was around to claim her. Anoushka was a happy little girl and her “father” introduced her to many things in life including music and dance- Mr Shankar was not around in these formative years- Mr Kotiyan was very much so. It was thought that one day she will want to see pictures of her lost,happy childhood.
The site is not intended to say anything against Ravi Shankar or Sukanya, we know such people exist in the world that do such things all the time. They are still great artists if not great human beings.
We hope that people will realise that Mr Kotiyan was and is a good and an honest man by looking at his pictures, and that he really did do a good job as a dad.
Hi…I’m trying to do to much perhaps, but wherever I see this sort of biased information about my previous “father” I try to speak up. I heard of this blog and wanted to drop in and say- I dropped contact with him of my own accord even though my parents encouraged me to stay in touch with him, as someone who had played a central part in my childhood. I did so because he made me uncomfortable with his obsession with trying to turn me against my biological parents- something he is STILL trying to do through strangers sadly. I wish him the best but I also wish he wouldn’t be so hurtful- if he really loved me as a child, would he do this? Or is this the action of someone trying to milk as much attention as possible? I hope his friends will slowly do as I ask and stop spreading these untruths, and stop trying to contact me to “help” me know the truth. I already know it- I was there.
Read this http://societymag.co.in/Event.asp?nodenumber=9&file=Event/December2005_Event.xml