Interview with Ravi Shankar

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Tony Sheridan

Dominique Tarlé

Ravi Shankar

limited edition box set Raga Mala

OC: Hello Raviji, it's good to talk to you. As I remember you tend to go to India every winter for about three months, but you've been there for quite a long time this year. How are you feeling first of all?

RS: Much better. I was a bit under the weather as you say in England, but I am much better now. I had a little respiratory problem after coming back from Vishakhapatnam, where I went to receive an award. Vishakhapatnam is a very important naval base on the eastern coast of India in the state of Andhra Pradesh. It is a beautiful place actually. I was presented with this Millennium Award by Dr Subiram Reddy, who has become a friend of ours. He's a very wealthy fellow and very, very popular. He had staged a very special event with a lot of film stars and playback singers and very eminent people from all over India present. It was very interesting but a bit strenuous. But we enjoyed this trip.

Apparently you're going to be eighty years old. I can't believe it. I'm sure it's not true.

Yes, I can't believe it! I would have felt all right, absolutely, but I think slowly the weather and the pollution are having an effect on me. Now I am looking forward to leaving India before it gets too hot actually.

How are you going to be celebrating your birthday?

Well, that's something that Sukanya is arranging. I feel very embarrassed to celebrate anything in a big way! But it seems that we'll have a pooja [ceremony of worship] in the morning, that much I know, and in the evening some function outside on a lawn, where they are putting up what we call a shamiana, a marquee. We'll have some music. I think Sukanya is taking care of it, and I do not want to know much about it. I'm not playing anything myself.

For the morning pooja there will be three or four Vedic priests coming. These priests are from families who have been Vedic priests through the generations. They will be chanting the Vedic hymns and doing the rituals, with the fire, to pray for good health and all that. There are special things done for the 60th year and the 80th year, and of course the 100th year. But eighty is also very important according to our tradition.

How are you finding Delhi and India at the moment?

Well, this time I didn't perform in Delhi. In fact I've been performing very little, because of the Millennium events that happened, and before that the Kargil war. Things have been a bit different, you know, programme-wise. But I had a few interesting programmes, not in Delhi or Bombay, although the one in Calcutta was outstanding. I really enjoyed it. I seldom enjoy my own programmes so much. The public is so great in Calcutta, and there were also a lot of musicians who had come, so that made it very interesting. This concert was held on a lawn in the open-air, with a covered stage, with a specially-invited audience of about 2,500 people. It was in the International Club, a very old club actually, in Calcutta. It used to be known as the Irish Club, but now they have changed the name and it's run by different patrons. And it really turned out to be very good.

Where did you spend your Millennium Eve?

Oh, it was here in Delhi. It was interesting, mostly watching television. I didn't go to a party or anything, because here as everywhere else the parties are mostly drinking occasions! But I really enjoyed watching the time changes on television. You can go on seeing them for ten, twelve hours continuously, all through the night, including London, New York and everywhere else. And then again in the early morning I got up and caught up with many places where the time difference is greater - for instance California.

How is Anoushka?

She is enjoying herself, you know. She has a lot of friends here. I have been teaching her quite a lot, but not so much in the last week or so because we had the Holi festival, then we went to Vishakhapatnam, which took up a few days. She was to go with us but she had some food poisoning or something, so she stayed back.

You also received the Legion d'Honneur, I heard. That award must have been very pleasing coming from France, given your love for the country.

Yes, that was a little earlier, sometime in early March I think. That was very nice, and they had a very good function at the French Embassy in Delhi. They invited a lot of important civilians, not just government officials. A very short function, very nice, and the food was delicious. They have the best French chef you can think of! No French restaurant here can compete with his cooking.

And you had a letter from President Chirac?

Yes, that was an earlier one, and then I got the congratulations message. But the main letter was much earlier.

Who have you most enjoyed working with in your life, or who have you most admired?

Well, all of a sudden I cannot think of one person that is the most, but a few people come to my mind whom I have most enjoyed working with: Yehudi Menuhin, of course, Satyajit Ray, George Harrison, Zubin Mehta. There will be a few others that I might forget right now, but these ones have been very important and I really enjoyed very much working with them.

Is there anyone you regret not having worked with?

Ah, that's an interesting question. I cannot say 'work', but if it was possible - the age difference is so much - I would like to have been associated with Rabindranath Tagore more than anyone else. I did meet him once which was such a powerful moment. Also some famous musicians in East and West. But in the East, though I can admire them I cannot work with them, because the whole genre of Indian music is different, based around solo performances. I cannot do anything along with another musician.

In fields other than music, which personalities have you most admired or been most excited to meet?

Hitchcock was one. Chaplin was one. I saw Chaplin from a distance but I never met him properly. It was in Monte Carlo when the film City Lights was released back in the Thirties. I was hardly twelve then. He was like a magic name. And a person like Walt Disney for instance. My secret ambition was always to provide music for animation films: something with an Indian theme, either a fairy tale or mythological tale or on the Krishna theme. I still have a very deep desire, but these sorts of chances don't always come.

You provided the music to that short film The Tiger and the Brahmin in 1991, which used still frames of drawings or paintings.

Yes, that was the nearest to it, and I enjoyed that thoroughly.

And where did you meet Hitchcock?

I think I met Hitchcock twice: once when he came to Calcutta when his film The Trouble with Harry was released. That was a very interesting film. And then I met him in late 1967 or early 1968, and still it was an excitement for me. It was when I received a doctorate in Santa Cruz, at the University of California. You can see him in the film Raga; he was in the audience and there is a clear shot of him. I just met him briefly, and I don't know why but he hardly talked. He looked so serious, but I know that he had a naughty mind. Of that I'm very sure!

I am a big fan of his films, absolutely. There are so many great ones. Spellbound is a favourite. Rear Window is another. North By Northwest with Cary Grant, To Catch a Thief also with Cary Grant. And what I really admired was the series he did for a few years in the United States, the programmes of less than half an hour: Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Some of them were absolute gems. He used to introduce each one himself, and of course he loved to appear once at least in all of his films.

Where and when in your life have you felt the most happy?

Again there have been many times, whether in the presence of Pablo Casals, or Satya Sai Baba or the great Shankaracharya of Kanchi who passed away about three years ago. Also a lady known as Ma Anandamayi, a great saint in Benares where I was born. Baba, of course, my guru, to be present with him and Guru Shankaran Namboodri, the guru of Kathakali dance. These were some personalities that I will always cherish the memory of. My brother Uday too. These have been some of the great heights of my life, not just in meeting the personality and name; these were people who did something to me.

What are your plans for the future? Are you still thinking of dividing your time between California and India?

Well, this dream of our Centre in Delhi is slowly unfolding and becoming a reality. It has been many years since we first started our efforts to create it, and it is not completely ready yet but I can see the whole thing taking shape now - we visit every few days at the moment and I think it will be really complete in every manner by September or at the latest October. Unfortunately we cannot come that early because of all the commitments we have for concerts in the States, and the earliest we are scheduled to come here is the end of November. So now this has become my latest plan or dream.

It will not be a school or institution but something very different, though there might definitely be one or two very talented students. But we are not making that the main thing, apart from having some students who have learnt from me already who may come and learn in the gurukul style. I also plan to have some very small children learning there, who are extremely talented and really hand-picked, so that with them we can have that system of gurukul teaching. And I am trying to have some of my advanced students, if not permanently, at least come and assist me as much as possible.

But what that I am dreaming of, along with this, is a music circle. The starting of a kind of intimate soiree, with membership of between 200 and 400. A hand-picked audience, people who are interested. I would like to start here the system that was very prominent in Bombay and Maharashtra especially. We'd have just one artist per evening and hear them for as long as they can perform, whether it is two hours or four hours. We'll have lectures or explanations also for people who are interested but not much acquainted with our music. So that's a pet project of mine.

There will also be an archive in an air-conditioned underground room. And then we have an underground studio being planned. Now we have to seek donors for recording equipment and things like that. We can build a good studio and we are getting proper advice from the sound point of view. But what we need is all the equipment. As much as possible we'll make use of all the computerised latest equipment, both for the music and for preserving recordings and things like that in the archive.

So when the Centre opens, will you be spending more time in India then?

That's what I plan to do, but summers are the time that I really dread to be here because of the heat, and for health reasons specially. So we might take advantage of that period for either touring or coming to Europe or being in the States maybe.

I was fortunate to work with you on your book Raga Mala that Genesis published. Did you enjoy the process of reexamining your whole life which you had to go through for this book?

What a difficult job it was, and for you as well! My life has been such a complex one. And I did not want to be vulgar, as is the present trend in writing books, so that they can sell more. I did not want to make it very salacious, and hurt so many people even if they are dead and gone. So under these circumstances, you have to keep a limit on telling the so-called truth, whatever that is! I think it was very good and I enjoyed the actual process of going through my life in many ways. I did feel that there were things that I could have said more about, had I remembered, but when I think of the size that the book would have grown into I can understand!

Apart from the Centre, do you have any other particular plans for the future then?

Well apart from the Centre and maybe a few exciting concerts that I am expecting during this year, I don't have anything specific, but I am looking forward to the Centre very much.

And you will be continuing to teach disciples?

Yes. In fact I had a very interesting four-day workshop recently, here at my home in Delhi. It was not on a big scale like I used to have in Benares some years ago, when almost forty or forty-five students would come from all over India and a few from abroad also. This was very small compared to that. I had only about six or seven students: three or four from Calcutta, one from Jaipur, two who are staying here. It was completely videoed. These workshops I love very much, and it was so compact and so full of different material. I was gushing really, and I was amazed! And everybody said that - they said that they had had long sessions in Benares but this one was unique.

And, you know, I am also turning out to be quite a speaker! Before, I realise myself, I used to be very nervous talking and giving any speeches. But I had this happy experience in the Bhavan Centre in London last year when I gave that special M. P. Birla speech. And then I also had to talk extempore for almost an hour and a half at the Ramakrishna Mission in Calcutta, with a very short demonstration by Anoushka. And without our knowing we were televised- we thought the television camera was there to film it for their records only. I like and respect the Ramakrishna Mission a lot, so we didn't object to that. But then I realised that it was completely televised by Doordarshan, India's national TV station. At first naturally our reaction was very bad. But then the phone calls started, and frantic messages, such congratulations - people became mad absolutely! Because somehow now I can speak so much better than I used to before, on any subject in relation to music, things like that. I used to make a mess of it.

So I would be interested in doing more of these lecture tours! In between talking and the little demonstrations, we'd have some cassettes or CDs playing, either of atmospheric music, or trying to make some point clear.

So that could be your new career perhaps?

I really can do it! I have got such confidence and tremendous inspiration now. So you could arrange something in London perhaps!

Raviji, thank you very much for your time, and we all wish you a very happy 80th birthday and many more to come.