Dancer, film actor, Hindustani classical singer - Lakshmi Shankar was all this and more. Starting her journey as a teenager in Uday Shankar's breakthrough troupe, she ventured into playback singing after a tragic illness cut short her dance career, going on to be the voice behind films such as Richard Attenborough's critically acclaimed Gandhi. But her ultimate artistry lay in Hindustani classical music. Apart from a distinguished solo career, she also sang for her brother-in-law Ravi Shankar's visionary music projects, including 'I Am Missing You', produced by George Harrison of The Beatles. Unfortunately, despite these accomplishments, Lakshmi remains largely uncelebrated.
In this book, Kavita Das, who has known her since childhood, traces Lakshmi's fascinating story that culminated in a Grammy nomination in 2009. She also explores the singer's personal life- her enduring friendship with Ravi Shankar, her marriage, and the death of her beloved daughter Viji.
Expansively researched, with anecdotes by Lakshmi herself, Poignant Song explores the journey of Indian music to the West through the remarkable life of a great artiste.
Kavita Das grew up in New York City, learning Carnatic and Bengali vocal music as well as Western classical violin. Before becoming a writer, she worked in the social change sector for fifteen years. She now writes about culture, race, gender and their intersections. She is a contributor to NBC News Asian America, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus and The Aerogram. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Tin House, Longreads, Kenyon Review, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Guernica, Quartz, Colorlines and other publications. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2016.
Kavita teaches non-fiction writing at The New School, among other places. Her writing can be found at kavitadas.com.
It seems like yesterday when Lakshmi Aunty was singing lullabies to my son Zubin in San Diego, when he was a few months old. Lakshmi Aunty's connection with my family goes a long way back. My grandfather fell in love with her voice when he heard an old 78 rpm record which had a Tamil song, 'Ade pazhana bhagawan, enge née dan, undan paralogam erinthidatha' on one side and a Bengali song, 'Maya bhora rathi", on the other. This was way back in the late 1950s. Sometime later, he called my grandmother from Bombay and said, 'I have found Lakshmi!' He then brought her to Madras in the early 1960s and presented her first full concert at the SIET college auditorium. That was the power of her voice and music. Aunty had a heart-wrenching voice, superb diction in multiple languages and her renditions were extremely expressive and moving.
A first-generation Indian Americaught Indon been fascinated by the movement that brought Indian music to the West. It started when my parents cultivated in me a love and appreciation for both Indian and Western music by having me learn Western classical violin and Carnatic or South Indian classical vocal from an early age. My appreciation of both genres, which together embodied my dual identity, continued through adulthood, inspiring my curiosity about how these distinctive musical systems, which grew out of two vastly different cultures, relate to each other.
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