Sitar maestro and composer Pandit Ravi Shankar, one of India's most loved and best known musicians, died in the US Tuesday. He was 92.
He had been admitted to the Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, San Diego last Thursday after he complained of breathing difficulties.He breathed his last at 4.30 p.m. Pacific Time Tuesday.
He is survived by his wife Sukanya Rajan and daughters Anoushka and Norah Jones. He also had a son, Shubhendra Shankar, from his first wife Annapurna Devi, who died in 1992.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described his death as the passing away of an era. He said in New Delhi Wednesday that Pandit Ravi Shankar was a "national treasure and global ambassador of India's cultural heritage".
"An era has passed away with Pt. Ravishankar. The nation joins me to pay tributes to his unsurpassable genius, his art and his humility," the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said in a message on micro-blogging site Twitter.
Dubbed the "godfather of world music" by George Harrison of the Beatles, Ravi Shankar was born in Varanasi. He spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan.
A performer, composer, teacher and writer, Ravi Shankar is well known for his pioneering work in bringing Indian music to the West.
No comments:
Post a Comment