Anoushka Shankar on her 11th Grammy nomination: I realised the odds are…

Indian-origin British singer Anoushka Shankar was recently in India to unveil the first single from her new EP, Chapter 3, and it felt like a full circle moment for her. “It always feels like a homecoming every time I come back. The particular journey I'm on right now, with these 3 chapters I've been making and releasing, the idea of it was seeded when I was here in India. So, it just all feels very connected and very meaningful,” Anoushka Shankar shares.

While she has lived outside India most part of her life, Anoushka admits that she feels she represents the country globally through her art: “It is an irony in a way because I was given this tradition from my father, even though I've lived primarily abroad. So, in a way, I do represent the tradition so 90% of the time I'm touring outside of India but I'm representing India. That feels like a beautiful responsibility. My music has always made me feel more connected to my roots in India than anything else.”

Anoushka bagged her 11th Grammy nomination this year but lost. She says, “In the past I have thought that this time, the odds would be in my favour but when I didn't win, I realised the odds are always 20% every time. I try to keep it in perspective that the nominations are exciting, and that's great.”

The singer acknowledges the growing influence of Indian musicians globally and she has her own two cents on the same: “It very much felt like we were operating in a vacuum before. People only saw us, and they didn't see any other Indian artiste and it felt kind of lonely in a way. Whereas now there's such a shift and there’s so much more South Asian presence and visibility.”

She also looks at the coming of global acts like Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa among others to India as quite a positive change. “India is now a very viable market to artistes, so that’s why they come. Also, we now have the infrastructure to make that possible. It's taken years of the festivals and the promoters in growing their expertise to the level that now international artistes can trust coming here and can feel like they can put on the show they would put on somewhere else. That's something I'm aware of as when we’d tour, it would be challenging coming here to do the same thing we would do elsewhere. I don't think that's quite the case anymore, so I think that's brilliant. I can just imagine how the generations to come will be influenced by that,” Anoushka ends.