A biography for Ravi Shankarhasn’t been written yet.
“Many people, especially young people, have started listening to sitar since George Harrison, one of the Beatles, became my disciple.”
“I don't appreciate avant-garde, electronic music. It makes me feel quite ill.”
“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.”
“I do think that my Indian classical audiences thought I was sacrificing them through working with George; I became known as the 'fifth Beatle.' In India, they thought I was mad.”
“I appreciate very much Vilayat Khan, the sitar player, and Bismillah Khan, the shehnai player; and among the tabla players, of course, Alla Rakha, Kishan Maharaja, and all these people.”
“The music that I have learned and want to give is like worshipping God. It's absolutely like a prayer.”
“I try to give to my music the spiritual quality, very deep in the soul, which does something even if you are not realizing it or analyzing it - that's the duty of the music.”
“'Ravi' means 'sun.' It's a Sanskrit original word. And 'Shankar' is another name of Shiva, one of the holy trinity god that we worship.”
“I believe in one thing: that anyone who is able to do something good for someone, I mean, should be praised.”
“There are thousands of ragas, and they are all connected with different times of the day, like sunrise or night or sunset. It is all based on 72 of what we call 'mela' or scales. And we have principally nine moods, ranging from peacefulness to praying, or the feeling of emptiness you get by sitting by the ocean.”
“In India, I have been called a 'destroyer.' But that is only because they mixed my identity as a performer and as a composer. As a composer I have tried everything, even electronic music and avant-garde. But as a performer I am, believe me, getting more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned.”
“Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature.”