Born in Almora, Uttarakhand in 1942, the sitar player Ananda Shankar is a legendary figure of Indian music. The son of Udday Shankar, a pioneer of East-West cultural relations in the 1920s, Ananda studied for five years at Benaras Hindu University under Dr. Lalmani Misra. By the late 60s, Ananda was living with his uncle, Ravi Shankar, in San Francisco, witnessing flower power at its height. The eventual sitar tutor of Jimi Himdrix, Ananda's reputation was revitalized in the 1990s when cuts like 'Dancing Drums' and 'Streets of Calcutta' were picked up by producers, DJs and musicians attracted to the coruscating "breaks and beats." During the emergence of the so-called 'Asian Underground' in the UK during the mid-nineties, Talvin Singh's club night Anokha, organized an entire evening dedicated to Ananda Shankar, spreading the word to an entirely new generation. Ananda spent the majority of the latter part of his career composing music for his wife's contemporary dance company, Mudavis.
