AN ODE TO RAVI SHANKAR

Only saw you a-live twice

In KL and you were in full flight

In Wellington and you were frail

I kind of knew you from a long time ago

As a child of the 60s

Got my first sitar in Calcutta

Took lessons in Kathmandu

Never advanced to the ragas

Still my sitar waits for my retirement project

To copy a note or two from you

Ravi Shankar

The year you died I was in Kochi, your India

And we listened to a sitar and tabla recital

Played well by two young unknowns

Attended by only three of us

Will the sitar’s popularity die with you

Ravi Shankar

The icon of a historical episode

All but forgotten in 2012

Resurrected only for silly reviews

Saying you never liked drugs and rock’n’roll and free love

What about your love child Normah Jones

What about the sitar that gently weeps

What about your Californian life-style

Ravi Shankar

You were a great musician and showman

Living in many worlds

A great Indian internationalist – a great contradiction

Like a Jain as head of the German Bank

Like a Pundit as the head of the Sony Music Corporation

As a head (a 60s term) of West meets East

Ravi Shankar the maestro, with Yehudi Menuhin

And a host of musical glitterati

With a love of music

And a love of the high (not a 60s term) life

Staying at the Mandarin Hotel and other presidential suites

But all is forgiven for the ragas you played at miraculous speed

Sa Re Ga ma Pa Dha Ni

Up and down, bending the notes, talking back to the tabla

Now there’s only your Anoushka, a faithful daughter

Playing the sitar like her father

But times have changed

The music has gone

Like my sitar

Ravi Shankar