Aurosmita Acharya
Oliver Craske’s Indian Sun, published by Faber & Faber, is a compilation of Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar’s creative genius and ‘butterfly lifestyle’, his first authorised biography. The book is the product of 25 years of research, with over 130 interviews and exclusive access to the legend’s family archive.
Craske’s close association with Ravi Shankar during his final 18 years helps him recreate the 92 years of Ravi Shankar’s life, from love affairs – hippiedom to life as India’s greatest cultural ambassador.
The book is an outcome of Oliver’s longstanding interest in Indian music, and his appointment to ghost-write Ravi Shankar’s autobiography Raga Mala (1997). Craske had the privilege of interviewing Ravi Shankar for over 30 hours and is also the curatorial consultant to London’s Southbank Centre for their exhibition on Ravi Shankar.
The book brings about not only Shankar’s virtuosic showmanship of taal-laya (rhythm-speed) correctness at music rendition but his focus on ‘the very serene part of the music, the spiritual, devotional and soothing part’.
From childhood spent as a dancer to a sitar soloist, Craske details every phase of Shankar’s life.
Shankar helped reshape jazz, minimalism and electronic music while excelling in sitar. He composed numerous film scores including Pather Panchali and Gandhi. He paved the path for global musicians, greatly reflected in his disciples, which include George Harrison, John Coltrane, Philip Glass and Yehudi Menuhin.
Shankar’s streams of improvisations have been vividly explained with insights into the raga-song structure followed in Indian Classical Music and so has been the experience with the audience.
Craske brings forth that Ravi Shankar believed his listeners felt ‘a certain peace…endless, grateful applause, tears of joy, flowing flower petals, and, if you were looking for it, a religious experience’.
In 2012, before Ravi Shankar’s departure for his heavenly abode, he said, “Now I am the music”. Craske does justice to Shankar’s unending creativeness, emotional quest and his complex and enduring legacy in the Indian Sun.
(The reviewer is a New Delhi based freelance journalist and Odissi dancer.)
