SITAR player and composer Anoushka Shankar’s music is deeply rooted in the Indian classical genre, which she studied from the age of nine under her father, the legendary Ravi Shankar, who passed away in December, 2012 at the age of 92.

Now she has teamed up with her sister, Norah Jones, and producer Nitin Sawhney to produce a new album entitled ‘Traces of You’.
Speaking to the BBC’s Lucy Hockings, the artist said: “All music comes from a personal place; and, for me, it was really about a journey that I ended up going on that I hadn’t even really meant to go on.”
With identical cheeky smiles and matching tattoos, legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar’s beautiful daughters look, and are, the closest of sisters. They both inherited their father’s musical talent and have carved out successful careers of their own. Norah is a renowned jazz pianist and vocalist, while Anoushka, having trained with her father, has become a renowned sitar player in her own right, gaining two Grammy Award nominations

While Ravi bestowed his extraordinary musical ability upon his daughters, he also gave them an upbringing that was far from conventional. Norah was born in 1979, the result of Ravi’s affair with New York concert producer Sue Jones (he had already had one marriage and one long-term relationship under his belt). Until the age of ten, she enjoyed a close relationship with her father. Anoushka was born in 1981 to Ravi and Sukanya Rajan, a musician. When he married Sukanya in 1989, Sue banned him from seeing Norah. That he and his daughters have since managed to forge a close bond despite the interruptions is testimony to Ravi’s charm.
Norah grew up in a modest home in Dallas, with her mother waitressing and playing the piano in bars. Anoushka said: “It has been wonderful getting to know Norah. She came to us when I was 16, and by the first year we were already close. It’s just weird that the press has suddenly caught on to it. Initially, the intrusion was very difficult for all of us. All she was trying to do was her music without her dad being the main focus.”

The day Norah got back in touch with the Shankar family, Anoushka was in the middle of a lesson with her father. She said: “A soft-spoken girl on the other end of the phone asked to speak to Mr. Ravi Shankar. When she said who she was, I was stunned, because by then I had totally given up on the idea that we would ever have any contact with her.”

There were difficulties at first, but the sisters are now close. “She and I have a beautiful relationship,” Anoushka said. “I finally have the sister I always wanted. She is incredible. She really has one of the best voices out there. It’s wonderful to see someone like her with that kind of substance and integrity getting success.”
Shankar himself was delighted at the reconciliation of his daughters. “They have so much in common it is mind-boggling, really. In their looks, in their behaviour, in the way they are so quick-witted. They are so fantastic together,” he declared.
The sisters, who share a sultry, doe-eyed beauty, have matching tattoos of a lotus flower on their backs.
Three-time Grammy winner Shankar is credited with introducing Indian classical music to the West. He was a profound influence on The Beatles, The Byrds, and numerous other rock artistes. Shankar and George Harrison (of the Beatles) organized the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, which paved the way for many other fundraising charity concerts.