Quotes from Anoushka Shankar

Writing for a film means the music has to serve the film, the narrative.

George Harrison became my uncle - not by blood but through love. It's sort of an Indian cultural thing.

I think it's helped me to have two unconventional parents, who have always encouraged me to be myself.

I do think evolution is an important aspect of keeping a tradition alive. If it freezes and remains very static in its form, it dies, and so a natural evolution has to occur.

My parents were very unusual. They were pro-women and independence and they wanted me to have my own career. And because of my lineage, every door was opened for me.

I have had other offers before but for my first film, I did not want to do anything too big.

Even though my parents raised me in a very individualistic way, they were also strict and traditional, which was good. It was hard to sneak out! I think I was quite wild, but in some ways quite contained.

The sitar is a really difficult instrument to play. Physically it's taxing because of the cross-legged sitting position, the length of the neck on the shoulder, the thinness of the strings. There's a lot of pain, especially at the start.

I do feel a commitment to this art form and to my father's teaching, and I think the older I get I'm feeling that more and more strongly.

Writing can flow out when I'm feeling something strongly, whether that's joy, pain, fear, desire or anything else. The challenge is actually later, in the second or third or 100th draft of the music, when it can be so easy to cover up the original sentiments by making the music more ornate or cloaked.

I have been given something really, really special and really unique, and it is not just in and of itself having learned from my father, who is the greatest exponent of this musical style. But it is an oral tradition that is only generally passed on in that manner, and so without the people who continue to... learn it and perform it, it dies.

I think cross-cultural dialogue is something that has hugely impacted the richness of the culture of our world.

When I work on someone else's record, I'm happy to alter the way I approach it, if I happen to like who they are and I'm interested in their music. But I know it's their record.

I listen to many forms of music. And I come from a very particular style and tradition of music, which has certain elements that are absolutely unique and, therefore, important to the world.

In the last few years in particular, I've found that it's okay to let go of culture rather than hold on to it. And by letting go, you kind of realise that it's there anyway.