Anoushka Shankar’s latest album for which she’s now touring India—she plays in Mumbai on Saturday and in Delhi on Sunday—is a homecoming of sorts. Home, Shankar’s first solo album of classical Indian music in 15 years—Anourag, the last one, came out in 2000—is a way to reconnect with her roots after the five well-received albums that were more experimental and free-wheeling in the way they mixed the sound of her sitar with jazz, pop, electronica, folk.
The album is also a tribute to her father, sitar maestro Ravi Shankar who died three years ago. In Home, she plays Jogeshwari, one of the many ragas created by him, in the alaap, jod, jhaala and gat style, in which Indian classical music is traditionally played. “I was conscious, as each album was going out, that I hadn’t made a classical music album in a while,” says Shankar, speaking over the phone from her London home. “After my father died, I was doing a lot of tribute concerts and those were all classical music. I found myself enjoying it and I thought I should put it on record. I have also grown a lot in the last 10 years, I am playing a lot better than earlier.”
That’s a telling statement from an artiste who had her first solo concert performance at the age of 13, began accompanying her superstar father on stage from the age of 14 and cut her first album of classical Indian ragas at the age of 17.
Much of Home was recorded at Shankar’s London home, in the studio that she got built last year so she could continue to work while pregnant. Mohan was born in February this year; she has another son, Zubin, who’s four years old now. “It’s probably the easiest album I’ve ever made because I could just come down leaving the kids upstairs. Of course, one needed to be very disciplined about it,” she says, echoing nearly every young mother struggling to juggle home and babies.
But what about music— surely, they don’t get to listen to much classical Indian music? Anoushka is not worried. “I grew up in London and New York, and it was a part of my growing up. There were all these other kinds of music, but Indian classical was never foreign to me. It’ll be the same with my sons. I try to expose them to it as much as I can. Also, I don’t have plans for them to become musicians.”
It’s been two years since Shankar has been in India, and she’s looking forward to a relaxed time with friends and relatives. Up next, in the coming spring she’ll release another album, Land of Gold, which’ll be more in line with the kind of world music fare she’s been doing over the years. That album, for which she’ll have a more extensive promotional tour schedule—Home promo concerts are happening only in India—is on Europe’s refugee crisis, she says. “It’s about borders and migration. My husband Joe White (British director of Pride and Prejudice fame) has come on board as producer, and I’m very excited to have worked with M.I.A. Vanessa Redgrave has also read a poem for the album.”
