Quotes from Anoushka Shankar

I ate Bengali food after my parents married and Dad started living with us, in both Willesden and in Delhi for three years, and then we all moved to California. Dad said he could make a really good dal, but I never saw him cook during the whole time we lived together.

Occasionally, if I'm in doubt over specific Indian classical or raga-related questions, I'll find myself going back to my lesson tapes or my father's recordings.

I do feel a commitment to this art form and to my father's teachings, and the older I am getting, the more I am feeling it.

In every aspect of my life, I tend to look for the deeper side.

The Grammys are very wide-ranging but it's still within the Western world of music. So it would be lovely if that opened up more.

As a disciple of my father's, I was certain I wanted to include one of his own raga creations on 'Home', as they are so beautiful; whilst many of his creations are part of the general classical repertoire for all musicians, many more are only played by those of us who learned from him, and therefore need to be played.

There's a very primal, emotional response I feel when I hear flamenco.

Some of the more intensive scrutiny when I was first starting out definitely used to be tough to handle; I was only a teenager, yet was being analysed in newspapers world over, often by people who already had a strong opinion about my privilege before hearing me play.

I just felt drawn towards the kind of music that really needed a strong female presence female writers, female producers, female figures and that just kind of unfolded on its own.

I love collaborations because they take your music in a different way.

My father taught me to play the sitar when I was seven years old. He and his elder disciples oversaw my teaching from the beginning, looking after my scale work, the poor things.

But I had a strong reaction to my first three albums and I struggle with them now, as an adult. It's very much the same as looking at your teenage photos in high school.

People are more willing to dislike your music and want to find faults in you when you are given opportunities like in my case. But I think in my case, people love my work and that's why I have to work doubly hard.

I hope it isn't exclusively true, but I often find that collaboration is the best way... to reach my highest musical place. Because I get so inspired by another good musician; I feed off that.

As a child I'd sit at dinner parties with artists, authors and musicians, some of the best people in their fields. I couldn't avoid the path I took having grown up in such an artistic environment.

Alchemy is one of the good quote-unquote south-Asian experiences in that it has a wide variety of classical to experimental music.

As far as using electronics in my music, I have to do that as honestly as possible. Also, I have a broad range of listeners from a classical music base, as well as people, like me, who listen to a lot of different music. So I'm mindful of letting my sitar playing remain at the center of what I do.

I think all kids are creative, so I wouldn't say my kids are geniuses. But they immediately respond to music. And they've got great rhythm!

I work in the music world in a kind of very multi-faceted way. I work around the world, in different genres.

I always had musicians in my band having children, and their wives were the ones at home taking care of the kids. So I never thought much of it. And then suddenly I'm the parent, but I'm the woman, and it's like, 'Ah, what happens now?'

So many silly things happen with a baby around. We laugh more than we expected.

I realised how rarely women are involved in all aspects of the music making, how rarely I've worked with female engineers. That became something that I started looking at as well. How many women can I bring into the project across the board.

I've been to the Grammy's several times for my past nominations and it has always a fun experience.

It is that kind of space, that little space of longing, whether it is in something like romantic love, or whether it's in something like divine love. You know, that kind of search for something that's not quite in your grasp. It's a very powerful place to explore as an artist, because it's not necessarily sad.