Pandit Ravi Shankar: A Legend

Pandit Ravi Shankar was born on 7 April 1920 to a Bengali Brahmin family in India. When born he was named as Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury (Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury in Hindi), his name was then preceded by the title Pandit (Master) and "Sitar maestro", due to his achievements in the field of music. He is known as a Bengali Indian musician and a popular music composer of Hindustani classical music.

He was one of the best-known proponents who used to play sitar in the second half of the 20th century and also influenced various musicians all over the world. Pt. Ravi Shankar was also awarded the India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna in the year 1999. Shankar spent his early life touring India and various parts of Europe with the dance group headed his eldest brother Uday Shankar. He then at a point gave up dancing in the year 1938 so as to study sitar playing under the renowned musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in the field of music in 1944, Shankar started working as a composer, making the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray and thereafter worked as music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956. Thereafter In the year 1956, Shankar started to tour Europe and parts of the Americas comprising Asian people playing Indian classical music which helped increasing his popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance along with his association with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Beatles guitarist George Harrison. His influence on the music composition helped to popularize the use of Indian instruments like sitar in the pop music in the latter half of the 1960s. Shankar then engaged himself in the demanded Western music by writing various compositions for sitar and orchestra, and then he toured the world in the later 1970s and early 1980s. He also had a chance to serve as a nominated member of Rajya Sabha for a period of five years starting from 1986 to 1992 in which he served as the Member of Parliament in the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. He continued to perform sitar in the usual course until the end of his life on 11 December 2012.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_Shankar