For sitar maestro Anoushka Shankar, making music is an intuitive process

The Grammy-nominated composer’s genre-defying music has always had strong undertones of her Indian upbringing

Sitar maestro and Grammy-nominated musician Anoushka Shankar believes traditions are much more than just ideas. To her, they are rituals born out of the uniquely human need to remember and be remembered by the places we once called home. “It’s an inherently human need to feel that you belong somewhere, anywhere. Maybe tradition is what you call that feeling?” she says. 

Shankar’s collaboration with the modern precious jewellery brand Her Story celebrates rootedness—a key aspect of her music and, by extension, her personality. Her collection, titled Keepsakes, embodies her nostalgia and deep connection to the homeland through the various motifs of India.  

Shankar’s music, while genre-defying, has always had strong undertones from her Indian upbringing. “No matter how much I learn about it, making music will always be an intuitive process for me. After a point, you just have to trust yourself to subconsciously know the craft and focus your energy on finding stories within you."

These stories, as Shankar puts it, are “all that an artist can really offer to their audiences.” She further elaborates on why she makes the kind of music she makes by using an interesting analogy. "I’d like to draw parallels with language. No matter what language they’re speaking, people always tend to talk a certain way, right? This will be edited, of course, but the way we’re speaking right now is this innately Indian variant of English. The same goes for music, I think. No matter what music you make, it’ll always have that little twang to it.”

That being said, the idea of being rooted in a particular place and time has never made much sense to Shankar. “I don’t like that definition. Then what about immigrants and refugees and everyone else who hasn’t had the privilege of having a stable home?” she says. "My roots aren't just a stationary connection to my past. I form new roots with every new experience that somehow affects the way I think. These new roots are as important to me as the old ones from, say, my childhood, which is why I just believe in being rooted within me instead of a place or time."

Music that binds

Shankar’s recently held concert in Mumbai, part of her ongoing India tour, saw the release of what she deems to be one of the most important songs of her career. The song, titled In Her Name, is a rendition of her 2013 track In Jyoti’s Name, which was then made to draw global attention to the horrific attack on Jyoti Singh Pandey (Nirbhaya) in New Delhi from the preceding year.

“It’s now In Her Name because I wanted to extend it to women across the world. The song seeks to ask if we’ve really learned anything since the incident. It has been 10 years now, and violence is still an everyday reality for so many women around the world.” Shankar believes that music, when made with intent, can become a truly effective tool for activism. "Music is unparalleled in its way of evoking a sense of empathy in people. Sure, words and images help but nothing engulfs you as much and as quickly as music. When people feel the way you feel, they care for the things you care about.” 

More than entertainment

Shankar further describes music as a transcendent art form that is much more than just entertainment for millions worldwide. "Music is the keeper of history and culture for many people across the world. These communities that don't necessarily know how to read or write can only tell their stories with all of their original emotions through music. It is more than culture for them; it is the very vehicle that helps their culture move forward." This realisation, coupled with a keen sense of empathy, is what informs Shankar’s musical sensibilities at their very core. “I know what it feels like to be at a bar and hear an English song completely misuse Indian instruments. It reduces a very beautiful culture to a gimmick and I’d hate to do that to someone else.”

Moving forward, Shankar wishes to keep making music that feels true to herself and her sensibilities by drawing on the beautiful experiences from her latest India tour. “It feels like home, there’s no other way to describe it. Performing in India has always been special for me. It fills me with a sense of immense gratitude and belonging and I hope that shine’s through in what’s to come next in my career.”

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