Quotes from Anoushka Shankar

I think we are all individuals at the end of the day. There's nothing about culture that can prescribe who you're meant to be.

There is no everlasting power in the music of today. Everyone is running after record sales.

The kind of love people in India shower on me is overwhelming.

You know, I think becoming a parent has really changed the way that I feel impacted by what's going on in the world around me.

My mother is an amazing vocalist and a lot of my grounding in music has come from her. She was a student of Lakshmi Shankar, my father's sister- in- law.

I try and approach other music with sensitivity. And, if it's music I don't know, I try and work with other people who are well-versed it in, so that it's done sensitively.

I think I've been lucky to work with so many lovely people. But there's Joshua Bell, who's the world's greatest violinist. We worked together live and once, for his record, but I really would want to work with him on one of my records.

But there was a lot of pressure to achieve and to get things right, whether in school, on stage or with my peers and family.

There is great strength in vulnerability, as it takes courage to push through the fear and share one's true self with others. In music, that vulnerability really speaks to listeners as it connects with their own hearts.

I think sometimes when you speak about something like 'Indian classical music' and 'ragas,' and all of that's new to people, it can be quite intimidating, in the same way that I have sometimes found opera and Wagner intimidating - one doesn't know where to begin sometimes.

My memories of mealtimes are a real bleed of music and food. Music never really stopped in the music room, because everyone would move out to the table with their sitars.

But when culture becomes a baggage, things don't work. What is good about anything that feels like a baggage? I think we should let go when it feels like a burden. Hold on to the things you love. Then it will be a natural process.

I suppose if you make enough money with one album, you can relax the rest of your life. I would rather go for smaller and stronger successes.

In a studio context, the music becomes greater than the sum of its parts. When you have collaboration, you have other people's strengths that I don't share, so my song can get stronger.

On 'Love Letters' I focused exclusively on sung music, creating a collection of songs that directly address heartbreak and its ensuing emotions in a way that instrumental music can only hint at.

My father was a pioneer and a leader in the things he did and the way he did them.

With 'Peradam', the nature of the project was such that it was deeply immersed in spiritual concepts in India and is based on the works of French poet Rene Daumal.

I love it that my father is such a classical musician and such a traditionalist, and at the same time has had a wild life and a crazy time.

We need more women in positions of power so that women's issues are thought of more, because a room full of men in government and in power don't think the type of things needed to make a change.

I am a very curious person, not just about my life in music. I love arts and creativity.

I lived with my teacher and he was my father and he practiced every day so I practiced every day and we practiced every day together.

I'm not pretending I can change the world, or to be an expert on social and political affairs. But I certainly have a right to say when something is wrong.

I would say 'Home' is a lot richer and deeper than my earlier classical.

Listen with an open ear is the first, most important thing to do. From there, if people feel like learning more, that's when you can kind of go deeper.