Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar is a sitar player and composer in the United States. She is the daughter of Ravi Shankar, Indian sitar player, and Sukanya Rajan, a bank employee. Through her father, she is the half-sister of Grammy Award winner Norah Jones.

Shankar began training on the sitar with her father as a child, gave a public performance at the age of thirteen, and signed her first record contract at 16.

She released her first album, Anoushka, in 1998. Later, in February 2000, Shankar became the first woman to perform at The Ramakrishna Centre in Kolkata. Both Shankar and her half-sister, Norah Jones, were nominated for Grammy awards in 2003.

Shankar, in collaboration with Karsh Kale, released Breathing Under Water on 28 August 2007. It is a mix of classical sitar and electronica beats and melodies. Notable guest vocals include her half-sister, Norah Jones, Sting, and Ravi Shankar who performs a sitar duet with his daughter.

In 2009, Anoushka started writing weekly columns for HT City, the lifestyle supplement of Hindustan Times. These columns appear online on social network Desimartini.