Festivals
Durga Puja
Associations
Learn Bangla
Beng. Marriage
Art & Craft
Great Indians
Beauty Care
Recipe
Astrology
Beng. Section
Bengal
Calcutta
Beng. Calendar
Wallpapers
Movie
Music
E-Card
Shopping
E-Puja Room 
News
E-mail
Month's Events
Weather 
Chat
Education
Join Us
Advertise
Website links
Link to us
Guest Corner
Services
WebSite Design

Robindra Shankar was born on 7th of April, 1920,in Benares. He was the youngest of the four brothers. His father, Shyam Shankar, was an eminent scholar, statesman, and lawyer. The young Shankar or "Robu" was raised by his mother in some poverty for his father's absence for most of his childhood. As his eldest brother, Uday Shankar, the legendary dancer

established his own Indian dance troupe, in 1930,Robu, his mother and brothers moved to Paris to join the troupe.
In 1935, Ustad Allauddin Khan, an extraordinary virtuoso musician, commonly recognized as the founder of modern Hindustani classical music joined the troupe for a year. Captivated Shankar became "Baba" Allauddin Kahn's disciple in Maihar, Central India, when the troupe returned to India in 1938. For nearly seven years, he learned sitar according to the old guru-shishya approach. In 1941 he married Baba's daughter, Annapurna, and they had a son, Shubho, in 1942.

Ravi Shankar first concert was in 1939. In 1940, he began recitals on All-India Radio. His innovative "jugalbandi" duets played with the young Ali Akbar Khan, his guru's son, the master of the sarod, popularised him. After ending full-time training, Shankar joined the Indian People's Theatre Association(1945-46) in Bombay, where he contributed the score to the ballet India Immortal (1945), and the soundtrack music to two realist movies in 1946. He also composed a new tune for the national song, "Sare Jahan Se Accha," which has become a popular standard.

Shortly after India's independence, he put on two productions of the ballet, "The Discovery of India" (1947), based on books by J. L. Nehru. Shankar then become Director of Music at All-India Radio (1949-56). His experiments with new Vadya Vrinda ("National Orchestra") on Indian orchestral music attained him further fame. In this period, he composed and directed music for Satyajit Ray's celebrated Apu Trilogy.

In 1952, he played for the violin maestro Yehudi Menuhin in Delhi, starting an overwhelming passion for Indian music in him and a deep friendship between them. In late 1956, he first toured Europe and America as a solo sitarist and made a considerable impact. In 1958, he visited Japan as leader of a cultural delegation and played at the UNESCO Music Festival in Paris. Ever since, he has been a regular globe-trotting performer.

His talent for orchestral composition and love of stage spurred him on to a sequence of innovative musicals and ballets, including Melody and Rhythm. In 1962, he opened the Kinnara Music School in Bombay. As a classical soloist he interpreted traditional raga forms both from North of India and unusually that of South. He even composed a number of new ones many of which are popular ragas.

He continued to provide well-received film soundtracks in both the East and the West, including Kabuliwala in 1956 (named best film music director at the 1957 Berlin Film Festival), Ralph Nelson's Oscar-winning Charly (1968) and Richard Attenborough's multi-Oscar winning Gandhi (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for the music).