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Indian Sun

The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar

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Indian Sun

Written by: Oliver Craske
Narrated by: Sohm Kapila
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About this listen

 The definitive biography of Ravi Shankar, one of the most influential musicians and composers of the twentieth century, told with the cooperation of his estate, family, and friends

For over eight decades, Ravi Shankar was India's greatest cultural ambassador. He was a groundbreaking performer and composer of Indian classical music, who brought the music and rich culture of India to the world's leading concert halls and festivals, charting the map for those who followed in his footsteps. Renowned for playing Monterey Pop, Woodstock, and the Concert for Bangladesh-and for teaching George Harrison of The Beatles how to play the sitar-Shankar reshaped the musical landscape of the 1960s across pop, jazz, and classical music, and composed unforgettable scores for movies like Pather Panchali and Gandhi.

In Indian Sun: The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar, writer Oliver Craske presents readers with the first full portrait of this legendary figure, revealing the personal and professional story of a musician who influenced-and continues to influence-countless artists. Craske paints a vivid picture of a captivating, restless workaholic-from his lonely and traumatic childhood in Varanasi to his youthful stardom in his brother's dance troupe, from his intensive study of the sitar to his revival of India's national music scene. Shankar's musical influence spread across both genres and generations, and he developed close friendships with John Coltrane, Philip Glass, Yehudi Menuhin, George Harrison, and Benjamin Britten, among many others. For ninety-two years, Shankar lived an endlessly colorful and creative life, a life defined by musical, emotional, and spiritual quests-and his legacy lives on.

Benefiting from unprecedented access to Shankar's archives, and drawing on new interviews with over 130 subjects-including his second wife and both of his daughters, Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar- Indian Sun gives readers unparalleled insight into a man who transformed modern music as we know it today.

 Asia Composers & Musicians Entertainment & Celebrity India Music South Asia

Critic Reviews

"A master receives masterly treatment... an outstanding, forensic and deeply sympathetic biography..."—The Arts Desk
'...[A]n intimate, expert reading of Shankar's music, as well as revelatory access to create the definitive portrait of his context within modern culture."—The Guardian
"[A] superlative biography... [A] masterly chronicle of a life teeming with all-too-human incident but heavenly inspiration."—London Times
"The definitive biography of the Maestro, told with the cooperation of his estate, family, and friends. Rigorously researched and lovingly presented, Oliver Craske offers a detailed and compelling account of the life of Ravi Shankar and the worlds he touched through his music and personal journey."—East Meets West Music
"...Craske handles the niceties of Shankar's personal life with diplomacy while staying focused on his subject's musical mission and lifelong hunger for spiritual fulfilment. He wears his expertise lightly and his passion on his sleeve: a winning combination for a definitive work."—The Observer
'"Read as a whole, this book feels like an Indian version of A Dance to the Music of Time: the same characters bumping into each other over the course of nearly a century, relationships fraying and re-knitting, love affairs flaring, dying down, re-igniting, children repeating the mistakes of their parents, all against a backdrop of war and famine and independence and nationalism."—The Spectator
"Oliver Craske's extraordinary biography Indian Sun... is not a hagiographic portrait of a spiritual icon but a remarkably human life story, defined by familial failures, seething rivalries, physical frailty and relentless ambition. For anyone who has been moved by a Shankar recording, this is a portrait of the man behind the music and the unchartered waters of Shankar's quest to save Indian classical music from extinction. With his elegant writing and extensive research, Craske manages to shatter Shankar's cliché Eastern sage persona and rebuild his reputation as one of the giants of world music. Indian Sun transcends its subject by becoming something larger than a narrow timeline of an undeniably large life. In using Shankar as an axis, Craske has written a broader cultural history of music and hyphenated artists in the 20th century - a measured rumination on the possibilities and the price of artistic ambition... this is a beautiful book, as resplendent as its subject's music and life."—Washington Post
"Indian Sun is a new authoritative biography of the Indian musician Ravi Shankar's life, published to coincide with this year's centenary of his birth... Oliver Craske traces the full breadth of Shankar's life beyond the known flashpoints of his career."—NPR's All Things Considered
"A definitive, meticulously truthful book, full of discoveries."—BBC Radio 4 (Pick of the Week)
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Over 22 hrs heard at 1.7X, Oliver Craske and the narrator immerses you in the absolutely incredible life of Pandit Ravi Shankar who has perhaps experienced and achieved more in one life time of the arts than anyone i know. Oliver tracks his life from even before he was born from his father - strange dichotomy of global, liberal and spiritual worldview juxtaposed of neglect for wife and his son/children. By the mid 50's with Ravi Shankar only 35, his achievements and mastery were already of thenext order and he had another 2/3r'ds of his life to live and create such a prodigious body of work and collaborations from Yehudi Menuhin, Philip Glass, Zubin Mehta to Ali Akbar Khan and so many others. I never knew the original scores for symphonies, ballets, dance dramas, opera and the world of cinema. What amazed me was the frenetic and relentless nature of his life which was grounded in music and taking India's classical music traditions to the world. I wish was there in era 66 to 1969 where he brought our music mainstream riding the counter culture wave. The book is a tourdeforce for anyone to understand what it took to be Pandit Ravi Shankar and who knew there might have been no Pandit Ravi Shankar if he surrendered to his suicide urges before he broke through and Tata Baba had not come and guided him!

Stunning Biography of Pandit Ravi Shankar

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This book in my opinion, is essential coursework when it comes to someone wanting to learn about Indian classical music. I cannot stress how important it is. There were some parts of the book where I hoped there was more detail or more anecdotes, but it is brilliant nonetheless. Where there was detail, oh my dear lord, I loved it. I could feel, in the author's words, the sense of urgency that Raviji felt, about taking Indian music to western audiences, the creativity he was filled to the brim with, and the passion he felt for his work.

What did I learn from this book- hardwork, hardwork, and more hardwork and they're not all one and the same thing. This book tells you, the hardwork his music demanded from him, the hardwork his ambitions and goals demanded of him, and the hard personal life he had, and what role his work played in how it played out.

The narrator, as opposed to the book, left much to be desired. I so wish it had been someone from India, to hit the nail on pronounciations of the names of raags, of people etc.

Lovely book- an absolute must have.

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How to ruin a good book is what you can learn from this one, the narrator can’t pronounce indian names, places and things properly, it’s a big disappointment and at some level disrespectful

How to ruin a amazing book

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