Journey of Sitar Maestro: Pandit Ravi Shankar!

A younger Pt. Ravi Shankar with Melodious queen Lata Mageshkar!

He had become the leading international emissary for Indian music between 1950s and the mid 1960s.

He regretted for performing at Woodstock. He had a bad experience where the stoned audience reminded him of the water buffaloes you see in India, submerged in the mud . After that incident , he stopped performing in the US for a year and a half.

A Magsaysay award winner, Shankar was nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1986. The song Sare Jahan se Achha Hindostan Hamara was set to tune by Ravi Shankar.

Most people are unaware of this, including HMV, which attributes the tune as traditional in an album featuring patriotic songs by Lata Mangeshkar.

When Mahatma Gandhi's died , Ravi Shankar, then in All India Radio had to play mournful music on the national radio broadcaster. Drawing from the name Gandhi, he took the three sargam notes that approximate it Ga (third), Ni (seventh) and Dha (sixth) and developed a new melodic theme.

He was awarded the three top Indian national civil honours Padma Bhushan in 1967, Padma Vibhushan in 1981, and Bharat Ratna in 1999.

He last performed in California on November 4 along with his daughter Anoushka Shankar.

Anoushka Shankar, is the lovechild of sitarist Ravi Shankar. But later he married his mother Sukanya in 1989.

He had an an affair with Sue Jones, a New York concert producer, which led to the birth of Norah Jones in 1979. Jones became a successful musician, winning eight Grammy Awards in 2003.

He won three Grammy awards in his long illustrious career.

Pandit Ravi Shankar started his career as a dancer, at the age of 10. But his life completey changed when he met Ustad Allauddin Khan. He gave up dancing and started learning sitar.

His real name is Robindro Shounkor Chowdhury and he belongs to Bengali Brahmin family.

India's sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar passed away here on Tuesday. He was 92.