India’s Great Sand Artist - India Real Time - WSJ

India’s Great Sand Artist - India Real Time - WSJ:

By Aditi Malhotra

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Sudarshan Pattnaik gave final touches to a huge sand sculpture of the goddess Durga at a beach near Bhubaneswar, Orissa, Oct. 19, 2004. 

Sudarsan Pattnaik’s tryst with sand began when he was an 8-year-old, on visits to a beach in Puri, a holy city in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. For hours he would swirl his fingers in the sand and make sculptures.

Born into an impoverished family in Puri in 1977, he dropped out of school by the time he was eight, when the only income his family of six received was 200 rupees ($3.33) a month.

Courtesy Sudarsan Pattnaik

One of Mr. Pattnaik’s early sculptures of a standing lady.

“My father had abandoned us and the little money that came into the house was from my grandmother’s pension,” Mr. Pattnaik, now 36 years old, said in a recent interview with India Real Time.

But he didn’t need much to pursue his interest in art.

“The beach was my canvas and my fingers, the brush. Water gave shape to my sculpture and the only color needed was that of sand,” he said.

Diptendu Dutta/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Sudarsan Pattnaik gave final touches to a sculpture of goddess Durga in Siliguri, West Bengal, Oct. 1, 2011. 

As a boy, Mr. Pattnaik started making routine visits to the beach at dawn and dusk, before and after his shift as a domestic worker in his neighborhood. His sandcastles gradually grew into bigger and more complex artworks.

He received valuable encouragement and advice from passersby.

“I remember once being told by a tourist that the nose of a figure I sculpted was abnormally large. I went back to the beach for the next few days and made that figure over and over again till I got to hear that the nose was perfect,” said Mr. Pattnaik.

Courtesy Sudarsan Pattnaik

A sand sculpture of Lord Jagannath ahead of thechariot festival in Orissa in 2008. 

Nearly three decades later, Mr. Pattnaik is still experimenting with sand. His work includes huge sculptures of temples and the Hindu goddess Durga and Lord Jagannath, some of which have enteredthe Limca Book of Records.

He also keeps track of important global events and translates them into sculptures.

“I have to keep abreast with the news and pick up what is important and trending,” said Mr. Pattnaik, whose most recent sculptures have been dedicated to the ailing former South African leader Nelson Mandela.

Mr. Pattnaik has taken part in nearly 50 international sand art contests and festivals, in countries such as Australia, Germany, Italy, China, Russia, Canada and the U.S.

Event organizers pay Mr. Pattnaik for displaying his work. He says his two-year sponsored deal with Nalco, an aluminum company, ended last month.

Courtesy Sudarsan Pattnaik

The “Don’t Smoke, Save Life” sculpture created by Mr. Pattnaik during the World Championship for Sand Sculpting held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 2013. 

In addition to the beach at Puri, Mr. Pattnaik says the unexplored Talasari Beach between the eastern states of West Bengal and Orissa is his favorite sculpting spot.

“The sand is impeccable on that beach. It is the perfect balance between coarse and fine. The only thing a sand artist will miss there is an audience,” he said, adding that sand sculpting is a physically demanding exercise.

Mr. Pattnaik hopes to expand his institute in Puri, where he has taught sand art since 1994.

Take a look at some of Mr. Pattnaik’s most memorable sculptures:

“Help the Tsunami Victims, 2004”: Mr. Pattnaik created a sculpture in Puri appealing for help for victims of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. “It was significant because the same water that helped perfect my sculptures had turned violent and taken so many lives,” he said.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

“Sleeping Beauty, 2007”: Mr. Pattnaik made this sculpture when he represented India at the first Istanbul International Sand Sculpture Festival in 2007. “After I completed the sculpture, I stood there staring at it, amazed that I had created this beauty,” he said.

Courtesy Sudarsan Pattnaik

“Global Warming, 2008”: Created at the 2008 USF (United Sand Festivals) World Championship in Berlin, Germany, this sculpture won Mr. Pattnaik the title of world champion. “To my mind, it was the most interactive piece of art not just because the theme was universal, but because my interpretation of it was a result of my interaction with the locals there,” he said.

Part of the sculpture was a figure of Berlin Zoo’s famous polar bear, Knut, who became a symbol of the endangered animal. The sculpture showed Knut sitting on a blazing globe with a message saying, “Save My Family.”

Courtesy Sudarsan Pattnaik

“Change Has Happened, 2009”: Mr. Pattnaik says he was awestruck by Barack Obama’s campaign to become U.S. president. “I became a complete fan of his conviction in bringing about change,” said Mr. Pattnaik, who dedicated a sculpture to Mr. Obama on the day he was elected. He also created sculptures of Mr. Obama ahead of the president’s visit to India in 2010 and when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

“I really hope I get to meet him one day,” Mr. Pattnaik added.

AFP/Getty Images

Follow Aditi and India Real Time on @A4iti and @IndiaRealTime.

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The Hindu : Magazine / Reflections : From Naxalbari to Nalgonda

The Hindu : Magazine / Reflections : From Naxalbari to Nalgonda:

A. ROY CHOWDHURY 

Posters of Naxalite leaders filled the streets during the recent peace talks between the Andhra Pradesh Government and the Naxalites.

IT was 1966. Berhampur bordered Srikakulam and Koraput, two districts in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, which were to become future hotspots of Naxalite activity. I was in my teens. A Catholic church had been burnt a year earlier, and Berhampur made headlines on the BBC. Selected for a Rotary undergraduate scholarship, I set off to Calcutta for the final selection.

Calcutta was flooded with Maoist literature. Ballygunge, Ghariahat, College Street — wherever I went, I found books and booklets. Mao Tse Tung, Liu Shao Chi, Marx, Lenin. The city was Red. I came back to Berhampur, with memories of a "different" Calcutta. In a couple of years, we heard about students disappearing from colleges. They became part of the "the movement". Stories were heard of rich men being killed in a village in neighbouring districts. "Class enemies" was an often-seen phrase in press reports.

New movement

Rumblings in the communist movement in India started in 1967 after the CPI (M) won a good number of seats in the Assembly elections and decided to participate in the Government. A section of leaders — particularly from West Bengal, Orissa, A.P. and Kerala — opposed the idea. The Government did not last long. A period of uncertainty began. The radicals, meanwhile, broke away from the party.

Peasants of Naxalbari rose in revolt. Naxalite became a new word. Similar movements began in Orissa, A.P. and Kerala. Nagabhushan Patnaik and Gananath Patro (Orissa), Vempatapu Satyam and Panchadi Krishnamurthy (A.P.), Kunnikkal Narayanan and daughter Ajitha (Kerala) were well known names. Kanu Sanyal and Jangal Santhal were the cult figures from Bengal. Most leaders went underground. Some were captured and jailed.

The CPI (M) and its allies swept the polls in 1969. It freed the arrested leaders. But the embers were far from being doused. If anything, they burned more fierily. On May Day, 1969, Kanu Sanyal announced the birth of a new party, the CPI (Marxist-Leninist), at a huge rally in Calcutta.

In the 1970s, I visited Calcutta once or twice a year. Presidency College was the hub of student activism, the jhola being a trademark. Beards a la Che Guevera had arrived. It was not uncommon to see policemen giving hot chase to young people around College Street. Many were killed. It was common to hear of someone's brother or son having been whisked away by the police for "questioning".

The early 1970s were the most turbulent period in "armed revolution". "People's Courts" gave summary judgments. Landlords, masters of all they surveyed till recently, fled from remote villages to safe towns. Pockets of "liberated areas" sprung up.

Heavy hands

Nagabhushan Patnaik.

This was also the period when the State used its heavy hand the heaviest way. "Encounters" became the order of the day in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. Meanwhile, the movement also antagonised many sections of society since innocent policemen and their families were targeted. For some, Naxalism was also a handy tool to settle old scores.

Around this time, I had a strange encounter in Koraput. Travelling by bus from Jeypore to Vizianagaram on work, a tall, fair man in his forties sat next to me at Koraput. We got talking. He said he was a doctor from Madras and had just been released from Koraput Central Jail. He told me that he had been treating patients when he was picked up and jailed. He made no secret of his communist sympathies but denied that he was an active Naxalite. Within an hour, long before Vizianagaram, he got down and went his way. It was 1981. There was hardly a ripple on the Naxalite front. The group had split into several factions. Most top leaders had been arrested, some were still underground and many were "encountered".

Nagabhushan Patnaik, who had spent 12 years in prison (including three on death-row), was released on parole. He was lodged at the Cuttack Medical College hospital, just 22 km from Bhubaneswar, where I lived. I thought, "Why not meet this unusual man?" and went on to record a 90-minute interview. Patnaik was an unbending man with firm convictions. This excerpt from that interview is worth recalling:

You said recently that individual terrorism is not in conformity with Marxism?

It is true that Marxism-Leninism brooks no individual terrorism. We are not worshippers of violence, but we do not mince words. We do not skulk away from our responsibility of launching revolutionary violence to meet counter-violence.

You don't disown your role in the violent past in the Naxalite activity. Don't you call it murder?

Definitely it was not murder. It was punishment inflicted by the masses. Though we thought that by this we would be furthering the cause of our struggle, it did not. So, we are correcting ourselves. In fact, we have to change our course from eliminating individuals to the path of agrarian revolution.

When I asked him if he did not apprehend harm from the enemies he might have made during his violent days, he said: I have no fear. We have only class enemies and no individual enemies. Class enemies as such would never dare to come upon me, because we have the vast support of the masses.

Centre of the storm

Something in the manner of the man, the flash of fire in his eyes when he said, "In India you have a one-woman rule who has scant respect for the so-called parliamentary institutions" or "what we have is sham democracy" impelled me on to the milieu that made this man.

Within a week, I decided to go to the epicentre of the storm that had apparently subsided. Once the police were satisfied that I was a neutral observer keen on knowing the people, the IG gave me a letter so that the local policemen would not make trouble. I met a few officers, some of whom were actively in from hilltop to hilltop Naxalite chase in Koraput. Here is what I gathered from them:

"For all practical purposes, the police force in a village was protecting one man against the rest. Usually, in a village, there was only one rich man with a big house and property, and he was the only one who was afraid of the Naxalites. The poor had no fear. Only sympathy and support."

"With the prevailing system of socio-economic inequity, political corruption, mounting corruption and rising prices, similar movements could erupt again. Don't be surprised if there is another eruption before you get much older."

I set off to Koraput-Srikakulam area. All buses in the State were on strike. Truck, trudge, train and rickshaw saw me in Kashinagar in 24 hours. From there, I pushed on, meeting people, talking to "surfaced" and underground extremists and taking pictures and notes for a full week. All this by bus, bullock cart, ferry and bicycle.

Meeting people

Among those I met was an elected Sarpanch of 23. Her mother's hand had been bombed out while making one. Her father was killed earlier in an encounter with the police. Another was a burly "Red Guard", unlettered but uncompromising in his convictions. I met the son of Maddi Kamesham in the cashew maze of Uddanam. Kamesham had been killed by a group of 10 Naxalites a few years earlier.

Throughout this odyssey, not one extremist threatened me or suspected my sincerity. They spoke with candour to me, a stranger. In contrast, though I showed the letter from the IG, the inspector in a place where there was no extremist activity, confiscated my film soon after I got down from a bus.

Fast forward to today. Seeing the recent reports about negotiations with the People's War Group in Andhra Pradesh, I wonder: What has changed?

People throng the guesthouse where the Naxalite leaders stayed with petitions and complaints. A picture of a policeman and an extremist standing side by side, arms on each other's shoulders, is a collector's item.

The words of that wise police officer ring in my years: "With the prevailing system of socio-economic inequity, political corruption, mounting unemployment and rising prices... ."

E-mail: fabalas02@yahoo.com

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Biggest Success Story ever, from an Indian Farm laborer to CEO of a Software Company in USA | harkuchh.com

Biggest Success Story ever, from an Indian Farm laborer to CEO of a Software Company in USA | harkuchh.com:

Biggest Success Story ever, from an Indian Farm laborer to CEO of a Software Company in USA

November 16, 2012   EDUCATION   13 Comments

You may have heard about many successful people who were nothing in the beginning and they became a famous person or personality later, but this story is greater than those all. It will be hard to believe on this but you have to believe on it, because this is a true Success story of an Indian lady who got married at the age of only 16, became a two child mother at the age of 18 who worked as agricultural laborer for Rs. 5 per day and today she is the CEO of a Software company in USA.

her story is enough to explain that ‘Success is the result of a continuous hardworking with optimism ,overcoming all the barriers’.  This is the Incredible Success story of the most successful woman who started from Nothing, and didn’t wait for the opportunity to knock but created the opportunity on her own, worked hard and made History, this is the complete success story of ‘Jyothi Reddy’.

Early Life, Education and Marriage

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Every success story has a humble beginning which proceeds through extraordinary events, and extreme life journeys. The story of D. Anila Jyothi Reddy is one of them. She was born in Warangal District (Andhra Pradesh) as eldest of four children to a common peasant who lost his employment from Army because of his attachment with the family. It was very difficult for her poor father to run family, so he put Jyothi in agovernment orphanage at Hanumakonda as a mother less child. From 5th class to 10th class Jyothi Reddy stayed in orphanage by having solitary life away from home.

She used to await if anyone would come and render some help. Particularly during winter season when she used to shiver like anything as her blankets were torn. Even during summer she never used to go to her village, she used to stay in warden’s house and did all the house hold work for which she was fed. She passed 10th class with good marks but could not continue her education. At the age of just 16 they performed her marriage with Mr. Sangi Reddy and by the age of 18, she became mother of two girls.

Necessity made her Post Graduate Teacher

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To meet the basic requirements of her family, Jyothi started working as an agricultural laborer for 5 Rupees a day and continued working from 1986 to 1989. Jyothi would mostly work in the fields and struggled to find a job in off seasons. Her tumultuous life changed the day when Nehru Yuvak Kendra (NYK) founded a night school with the intention of providing basic education for the villagers. 

Jyothi in Red Saree with white chain….When she working with Nehru Yuva kendra,Warangal…in 1990-91 Year and Salary was 190 Rupees per Month

She was the only educated girl in village so they appointed her as the volunteer to educate the adults after giving some training. It fetched her Rupees 150 per month. Her hard work and dedication impressed the Inspection authorities and they promoted her to Mandal Prerak of Hanumakonda. After being appointed there, Jyothi had to visit all the centres of the Warangal district and there she realized the importance of education. and she went on to completing her graduation and post graduation from Ambedkar Open University. Later, on completion of her B. Ed from Anna University, Jyothi Reddy became a government teacher. It was the initial stage that she successfully achieved through slow but steady steps.

Reason to Go Abroad

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If the story stopped here there would be nothing much to inspire others. Real Story begins here, Jyothi was working as inspector of schools, a relative of her who settled in America came to India, after meeting them on some occasions she realized how a completely different lifestyle they led. So for a bright future for her daughters, she dreamed of going abroad, as an old proverb says “Success is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” She started learning computers and saving money for her passport and visa. Back in those days, getting US Visa wasn’t as easy as today she tried many times and failed but eventually after series of early failures she could get a visiting visa and flew to America having a very little amount.

First Work in USA

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There challenges did not stop, her relatives denied giving her shelter they refused to take her phone call and fortunately was finally accepted as a paying guest by a Gujarati family. As work Jyothi joined a video shop in New Jersey as a salesperson, While working an Indian from Warangal saw her and recommended her name to his brother who owned a company called “ CSAMERICA” and she was appointed as recruiter there after being trained. It was a climbing phase of her economic and career ladder. Several months later, a reputed company ICSA offered her a better position with better salary so she moved. Jyothi says about that time “It was a crucial time for me. I had to deal with Americans but did not know English very well”.

After working for some days again she became in trouble when the company asked her to resign for not owning a working Visa. She resigned and once again worked for just $5 an hour doing several offbeat jobs until the day she received her H1 Visa (h1 Visa allows US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations).

Idea of establish entrepreneurship

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She went to Mexico for her VISA to be stamped. According to Jyothi ‘Getting the Visa Stamped, was one of the most painful and dreary experiences for her’, all the hardships of obtaining visa gave her an idea of establish her first entrepreneurship to assist the people to get their Visas. Jyothi came back to U.S in May 2000 and by September, 2001 she became entrepreneur with her own initiation, i.e. Keys software solutions was initiated. It extended its services in developing software solutions and recruitment and other job providing areas. She made her cousin as partner and extended her business to become more profitable.

The Dream became True

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Her priority and dream was always giving her children that life which she didn’t lived, Her hard work, commitment and dedication towards her goal make all her dreams true. Her two daughters had finished higher education in America from prestigious universities and got married to well settled bridegrooms. She made enough money to take care of her children and herself with many other children living in Orphanages. She did perfectly what she dreamed for and proved ‘No condition is permanent’.

Mrs. Jyothi Reddy is now the owner of a million-dollar company, has customised homes in the US and India, owns a Toyota Camry (an earlier car was a BMW) and has “enough” jewellery which is generally any women’s biggest dream specially in India  .

Believe in Humanity

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Jyothi strongly believes the words of Mother Teresa… “ The worst disease in the world is neither poverty nor other, lack of feeling of belongingness, being unwanted is the worst ”. Whenever she visits the Orphanages in India she prefers to spend more time with the orphans. “ she is more than mother to me’’ says Ranjitha, an orphan who is being sponsored by Jyothi, she helps the children with all that they require among all the love and feeling of belongingness. She visits Women’s colleges too and empowers them with her life experience. She also helped many Indians to settle in America by providing initial shelter and guidance.

Agricultural workers still remember her as friendly, keen to learn work, but often bemoaning her fate. “She used to walk around with an umbrella,” recalls one labourer with a laugh.

Conclusion

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She has proven that higher education is attainable by even very poor people against all odds. She proves that to be successful, what requires is aspiration, desperation, perseverance to accomplish, which most people think to be impossible. She is also a live example of ‘harder you work and luckier you get’. If you see many college students and people they keep on blaming their environment and parents when they fail to satisfy their wants. A sincere advice to them to visit any orphanage at least once in a year. You better understand the real pain of the life and appreciate what you really have.

A FEW BUT STILL TRUE LIFE ROLE MODELS. It’s so amazing for a girl from a BPL family particularly when her family was opposed to her climbing the ladder of distinction – all alone.

Hit like and share if you feel proud to be an Indian and if you think Jyothi Reddy’s story is Really inspiring.

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David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min | Video on TED.com

David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min | Video on TED.com:

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The Hindu : News / National : Spiritual he may have been, but spoke strongly against communalism

The Hindu : News / National : Spiritual he may have been, but spoke strongly against communalism:

Spiritual he may have been, but spoke strongly against communalism

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

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Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar may be known for bringing the raga to the West, but he also leaves behind a legacy of social and political engagement within India and throughout the world.

“Ravi Shankar was a shining example of India’s composite culture and was a vocal critic of groups who were seeking to divide and define us on communal lines,” says Ram Rahman, a founding member of the artist activist collective SAHMAT.

As Ravi Shankar’s early musical career took shape, so did his alignment with progressive politics: “He was an important part of the great moment of the progressive movement in the 1940s,” says the SAHMAT statement.

The maestro penned musical scores for films like “Dharti Ke Lal,” about the Bengal famine, and Chetan Anand’s “Neecha Nagar”, a pioneering effort in socially realistic cinema a decade before scoring the soundtrack for Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed “Pather Panchali”.

Ravi Shankar also composed music for the communist-affiliated Indian People’s Theatre Association which “had a huge impact in shaping modernism in the arts,” according to the statement.

In 1971, he and Harrison pioneered the rock for relief format— now so commonplace as to be almost cliché — with the “Concert for Bangladesh” held in New York to raise money for refugees fleeing from the civil war in East Pakistan to India. Shankar’s brother-in-law Ali Akbar Khan, along with rockers Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Ringo Starr joined the benefit; together, the Eastern and Western musicians raised millions of dollars for UNICEF.

With the clouds of communalism darkening the horizon in the years before the Babri Masjid demolition, he was a critic of groups seeking to divide the country on religious lines, taking part in SAHMAT’s “Artists against Communalism” programmes in Delhi and Bombay in 1991 and 1992.

Describing himself as a “sensitive musician”, he expressed his anguish at the increasing communal divide: “This discordant cacophony has to stop. It is the duty of all of us to try our best in our own way to bring back harmony amongst our people.”

Keywords: Pandit Ravi Shankar death, Manmohan Singh condolence

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The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : My Guru Pandit Ravi Shankar, my father and I

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : My Guru Pandit Ravi Shankar, my father and I:

My Guru Pandit Ravi Shankar, my father and I

SHUBHENDRA RAO

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LESSON ONE: Every single day was a learning experience — right from my first lesson in 1973 in Mysore, to the nine years of living and learning with him from 1984 onwards, to the numerous concerts I played with him. Photo: Shubhendra Rao

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 Pandit Ravi Shankar 1920-2012musicMusic Personalities
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Like a true teacher, he taught me not just about music but about life too

It fills me with great sadness that I have to write this tribute today to my Guru, Pandit Ravi Shankar. With his demise, an era has come to an end. The last of the legends of that generation is no longer physically with us. But artists like Ravi Shankar never die because they will live on through their music. Millions of people across the world have been deeply influenced by this charismatic genius who was always way ahead of his time, and they will continue to be.

I was fortunate to be born into a family where my Guru was worshipped as God. My father, the late N.R. Rama Rao, was one of his earliest disciples — from the late 1940s, when this legend himself was in his twenties. Their close bonding asguru and shishya is still spoken about in music circles as “Ram bhakt Hanuman, Ravi bhakt Rao.”

My father, his shishya

My father was the epitome of a perfect shishya and I grew up with lots of stories of their beautiful relationship. Father sitting behind on a bicycle with the sitar and Guruji riding the bicycle to All India Radio for his work; father listening to hours of Guruji’s practice sessions with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurnaji as he gave accompaniment on the tanpura; about the festive atmosphere that would set in weeks before Guruji arrived at my hometown, Bangalore.

They shared a beautiful relationship, one that continued until my father’s death due to Alzheimer’s disease in 2004. I remember the time Guruji went all the way to Bangalore to see him one last time. By then the disease was in a very advanced stage but the one person who my father could still recognise was his guru.

Even in the last few months, when, for all practical purposes, my father was not in this world and unable to recognise his wife and children, there was only one thing that could bring a semblance of a response from him — his guru’s music. We could detect some movement in his eyes and his fingers would start moving involuntarily.

Surely, the world knows Guruji as one of the greatest musicians and countless articles have been written about him for decades. Aside from the music I was privileged to learn from him; I was fortunate to see the human side of this great artist as well. His childlike enthusiasm to learn and live life to the fullest, his humility, and his humour — like a true “guru,” he taught me not just music but about life itself.

Every single day was a learning experience — right from my first lesson in 1973 in Mysore (where he taught me Raga Bhairav), to the nine years of living and learning with him from 1984 onwards, to the numerous concerts I played with him.

Despite his tight schedule during the two weeks in Mumbai in 1982 when he was working with Richard Attenborough composing music for the film “Gandhi,” he would teach me for three to four hours in the morning before going to the studio.

The Asian Games

In late 1983, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi gave Guruji a house in New Delhi’s Lodi Estate (where senior government officers live) as a token of appreciation for the music he had composed for the Asian Games.

At that point in his life, he wanted to spend more time in India and asked me to move to Delhi. The nine years that followed in the guru-shishya parampara are the foundation of my life. I learnt from him not just music or raga and tala but how to be a complete artist and to live the life of my music. For him, music was always a spiritual quest and I found this in every raga that he performed. He was the perfectnaad yogi.

I will never forget two of his blessings — the first was when his wife organised a surprise party to celebrate my wedding to Saskia as they could not attend the wedding in Bangalore; the second, when he visited the hospital a day after my son was born. Taking Ishaan in his arms, he said that he was only the second two-day old baby that he had held apart from his own son, Shubhendra Shankar (after whom my parents named me).

Last year, when I visited him at his home in California after finishing my U.S. tour, he told me, “Beta, I feel bad I could not give you enough time when I had to because I was busy with my concerts and tours. Now I have the time and want to give you everything that I have, but you don’t have the time because you are busy with your own concerts. I am really happy that you are doing well and my blessings are always with you.”

For sure, I will feel the void his passing has left, but I know he is always with me. His smile, his mesmerising eyes, his easy sense of humour, his passion for life and most important, his music will always live with me all my life.

(Shubhendra Rao, a disciple of Ravi Shankar, is a leading sitar artist and composer. Email:sitar@shubhendrarao.com)

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The Hindu : News / National : The illustrious ‘other’ who faded into the shadows

The Hindu : News / National : The illustrious ‘other’ who faded into the shadows:

The illustrious ‘other’ who faded into the shadows

ANJANA RAJAN

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The Hindu ArchivesMusical legacy Baba Allauddin Khan with daughter Annapurna Devi.

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In a world that has become used to packaged messages and instant communication, subtleties often fall by the wayside. Perhaps it is only natural then, that images generated by popular media — films, television, pulp fiction – are the ones that dominate our perception, be it of events, people or relationships. One such much discussed relationship was that of Pandit Ravi Shankar and his first wife, surbahar maestro Annapurna Devi, who lives in Mumbai.

Those not closely involved with classical music feel that the cause of the couple’s estrangement was professional rivalry, while those versed in the subject have more specific views. Most conclude that, given the usual complex relationship of a performing couple, and the popularly held view that her talent was greater than his, the husband’s jealousy must have been behind the rift. While Annapurna has steadfastly maintained silence on the details, even in the authorised biography — “An Unheard Melody: Annapurna Devi” (Roli) — by Swapan Kumar Bondyopadhyay, Shankar has been more open in his autobiography, mentioning her fiery temper and his equal propensity to flare up at that early age.

Having married Ravi Shankar when he was about 21 and she 14-15, she did perform surbahar-sitar duets with him a few times. The marriage did not last, however. She was not by his side when Ravi Shankar travelled around the world; his sitar concerts were a rage in the U.S. or when he performed at the iconic Woodstock Festival in 1969.

Bondyopadhyay’s book goes so far as to say Annapurna told him she will take to her grave the real reason for her withdrawing from public recitals.

Without much clarity on these issues, the image of Annapurna Devi as an unsung genius whose voice is muffled by a patriarchal society remains a picture without shades and subtleties. So there are other images worth considering.

Like her illustrious father ‘Baba’ Allauddin Khan, Annapurna Devi has proved a tremendous guru and groomed disciples like flute maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia and the late sitarist Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. Other acknowledged masters who blossomed under her tutelage include Pandit Nityanand Haldipur, Basant Kabra, Aashish Khan (son of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan), Ustad Bahadur Khan and Sudhir Phadke, besides her son the late Shubhendra Shankar.

Annapurna Devi exhibited in her music — so goes one version of the musical legend — a far greater proof of the genius of her father and guru than Ravi Shankar, or even her brother Ali Akbar Khan. Perhaps in addition to her prodigious knowledge of music — or as a result of it — she also developed a soulful, spiritual approach that has rendered her immune to the temptations of adulating crowds.

For over five decades now, she has been known as a reclusive if brilliant musician who refuses to perform in public, doesn’t record, receives hardly any visitors and takes only a few privileged students. Shankar, on the other hand, continued to garner musical fame and glory till his very last days, performing even after age and ill-health diminished his stamina and he had to use a sitar custom-made to suit his requirements.

Keywords: Pandit Ravi Shankar death, Manmohan Singh condolence

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