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The daughter of late sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar earned her fifth Grammy nomination this week for her album “Home”, which reaffirms Indian classical music’s hold in the West.
“I think our music in its purest form is something what we always talk about here as being under threat. I see that less for myself because I don’t come here that often, but I see my peers who say that they have to do collaborations and crossover fusion, and some kind of spin for it to sell,” Anoushka, who is in the capital to perform a concert on Sunday evening, told in a candid tete-a-tete.
“That’s such a shame because there is a huge audience for our music abroad. I tour around the world, the classical shows would totally sell out. There is a huge audience for what we have to offer. It’s a shame that it is not translating in the country of its origin,” she added.
She says that the “narrow stream of media” here makes it seem that Indian classical music is under some “threat”, but that’s not entirely true.
“We have a narrow stream of media and it’s really prominent and therefore it seems like Indian music is under threat, because it is not very visible. There is only one genre that’s really visible. But if you go to any classical festivals in any of the cities, it is amazing, it is beautiful. There are thousands of people listening all night,” she said.
While she doesn’t like the comparison between India and the West, Anoushka, who resides in London, would like to take the positives from the western outlook towards music.
“I don’t like the Indian and western comparisons, but the one thing I do like to take note of is that in the West, there is a space created for every genre so it’s allowed to exist on its own.
“Opera has opera houses, classical music has symphony halls, electronic music has clubs, rock music has stadiums. Everyone has got their space and there is sponsorship, donorship, support, radio channels for each genre. There is a setup for each thing and people can go for what they want,” she added.
She praised the Indian government for providing support to classical music and the arts, but lamented the lack of venues and media viability in the country.
