Tribute to Pandit Ravi Shankar on his death anniversary:

Tribute to Pandit Ravi Shankar on his death anniversary:
(Born: April 7, 1920, Varanasi, India Died: December 11, 2012, La Jolla, CA)- Written by Vijay Bhatt, Dec 2019 Blog posting.

A legend never dies. For most westerners, Sitar and Ravi Shankar were synonyms since 1950s. We find thousands of artists, actors, performers, and spiritual gurus visiting US and western world these days. In 1956-57, more than sixty years ago a classy ( pun intended) classical artist toured US and Europe and became a permanent fixture as a cultural icon and a life long ambassador of Indian music, culture and art in the West.

It took guts, faith, and a strong conviction in being an Indian carrying water for Indian classical music and art in the Western world which knew India only as a mystic place of snake charmers and elephant Gods.

To successfully articulate intricacies of Indian classical music to the dominant western culture where Beatles and Beethoven were ruling music lovers' hearts is Pt. Ravi Shankar’s singular achievement which rightly deserved BHARAT RATNA, the highest civilian award in India, let alone his superlative musical abilities and exceptional mastery on his life long shadow- his Sitar. Those fortunate artists who have accompanied him and those of us who have listened to him perform, all say that he had a unique combination of riyaaz acquired performance perfection and was blessed with divinely creativity.

Pandit ji, as he was known as, will always be in the air as TARAF sound( resonating sound -automatically generated by the sympathetic strings on Sitar) where ever Sitar is played!
- Vijay Bhatt Dec19 Blog posting.