Not everyone has what it takes to mix the traditional and the modern. But sitarist Anoushka Shankar is ensuring that the family musical tradition is safe in her nimble fingers even as she is bringing a world music feel to it with her fourth album Rise. During the course of which, California Sitar Girl (as she was called by a magazine), has made a discovery. “The aggressive side which I didn’t have before is revealed in this album. It’s very much my own music and my journey. Rise signifies growth on a personal level,” says Anoushka with a toss of her wild curls.

Rise, in the words of its composer, is a journey from morning to night with nine tracks stretching to ragas such as Jogiya, Bhairav, Bairagi, Khamaaj and Madhuvanti. The consciously classically-based record, however, is not heavy stuff that the non-classical should tread warily around. It has been jazzed up with new digital techniques. If that isn’t enough, the musician’s first studio recording in four years features George Harrison’s son, Dhani, who has reportedly lent his music-playing skills under a pseudonym to Anoushka’s album. The names don’t stop there.

The opening chords Prayer in Passing ? a “morning raga that’s very moody and simple” ? feature slide guitarist Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt providing melodic direction alongside famous flamenco-style pianist Ricardo Mi?. The sounds of the duduk (a Middle Eastern instrument) and the flute have been blended into the soundscape of Anoushka’s sitar.

Anoushka has had a meteoric rise that has surely been helped by being Ravi Shankar’s daughter. She recorded her first album, Anoushka for Angel in 1998. Anourag followed in 2000. The same year she recorded the acclaimed Live At Carnegie Hall, which released in 2001. There were side projects in the next two years. At one level, she made a guest appearance with electro-Indian outfit MIDIval Punditz and composed a soundtrack for short film Ancient Marks. She also acted in a Bollywood film Dance Like a Man and penned a biography of her father, titled Bapi, The Love of My Life ? that attracted heaps of attention.

Amidst all this action, Anoushka suddenly decided it was time for a break and took a year off in 2004. “Let’s say this lifestyle itself is high pressure. I was going to go disappear for a while,” she says. “I was travelling and meeting friends. Then I realised I wanted to make an album out of this sabbatical. Thus came Rise, which took me 10 months to complete.” It releases on Angel Records this September 27.

Anoushka has had a globetrotting lifestyle right from the start. She was born in London where she spent her early years. At seven, she was living partly in Delhi, where she still spends half the year performing and helping to take care of the Ravi Shankar Centre. At age 11, she moved from London to Encinitas, California, where she graduated in 1999 with honours from a public school.

Her career started with a small silver-fretted sitar, crafted for the nine-year-old by her father. And at 13 she made her musical debut in Delhi’s Siri Fort to glowing reviews. “It was my dad’s 75th birthday celebrations and I was terrified. I was going live. The next day my pictures were in the newspapers. It was strange, fun, scary, exhilarating,” reminisces Anoushka. In between she had to drop into school. “My friends thought it was cool because I used to leave school for months at a time. On the study front, it was tough but I got straight As,” she says.

The sitar, strangely enough, was not her first love. Having studied classical piano seriously, at one time Anoushka wanted to be a professional pianist. She cut back on her piano playing, however, after her hands began to swell up. “Because the sitar was always an option, it was what I didn’t want to do. I have always gravitated towards the arts. I loved playing the piano, theatre, dancing. But I had to choose an option and I ended up making the most obvious choice,” she says candidly.

She’s performed with the likes of Zubin Mehta, and participated in concerts with stars such as Madonna, Vanessa Redgrave, and Miranda Richardson. In 1998 she became the youngest person to receive Britain’s House of Commons Shield. In 2004, Anoushka was chosen one of 20 Asian Heroes by Time magazine (this incidentally is closest to her heart because “it seemed to be for the right reasons”).

In short, Anoushka is now a celebrity in her own right. She has even worked with old friends of her father like ex-Beatle George Harrison. She even helped Harrison as conductor in the 1997 Angel release, Chants of India. Says Anoushka, “There are memories of many a Christmas, of many holidays spent together. While my mother used to go mad, Uncle George used to spoil me rotten and give me very nice presents on my birthdays.”

But being Ravi Shankar’s daughter also brought with it the inevitable burden of expectations. “Some people will always think it was only because of who I am. I have never done anything to prove myself to them. At the end of the day, it depends on how you look at things ? you can say it’s a burden, but you can also say I have had the best teacher in the world,” she says.

The 24-year-old, who wears a silk sari on stage and hip hugging jeans at parties with equal poise, already has her schedules for the future in place. There will be two back-to-back concerts in New York this autumn that will see Anoushka perform the music from Rise on October 27 with her own ensemble. On October 28 she is a featured performer on Ravi Shankar’s Festival of India III at Carnegie Hall. Further Festival tour dates include stops in Houston, Dallas, Austin, Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC and Chicago. Then she will return to India for shows.

So how does she unwind? Outside the classical box, she listens to Bob Marley, Rage Against the Machine and Tori Amos. And sometimes she likes to do absolutely nothing besides staying in bed and reading, or watching movies. “In Delhi, New York, London, I become very social because I have a circle of friends whom I don’t get to see very often. Otherwise I love London for its options. It appeals to all my tastes,” she says.

Ravi Shankar once said he was, “waiting for the day when people call me Anoushka’s father”. She blushes at the memory and says, “This album does feel much closer to me than anything I’ve done before. But you can’t compare me to a master.”

Photograph by Rupinder Sharma