‘As far as improvisation and ideas, I mean I never had it before like this. It is such a joy and ecstasy. It is like I’m being sent ideas after ideas, it comes like sea waves. It is so spontaneous that I am wondering myself “Oh how beautiful it is I wish I can remember it”. By that time it’s gone and something else is happening.’

Mark Kidel, who made a documentary on Ravi Shankar in 2002-3, writes a touching personal tribute to Shankar who died on 11 December 2012. Kidel says that Shankar ‘did fusion, but never lost himself in it’. http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/remembering-ravi-shankar-1920-2012