Lakshmi Shankar

Lakshmi Shankar was a Hindustani classical singer and also dancer. She was a Brahmin born in Jamshedpur (currently in Jharkhand) in Bihar in British India in 1926. Her father was Bhimrao Shastri, who was an aide of Mahatma Gandhi and was actively involved in the movement to free India from the British. She was the associate editor for the weekly journal – Harijan started by Gandhi. Although she had training in Carnatic music, Lakshmi began her career in dancing. In 1939, she joined the dance troupe of Uday Shankar Uday Shankar is one the most well-known Indian fil >> Read More... – a famous choreographer, to learn dance. This is when she met her husband Rajendra Shankar A famous Indian screenwriter and dialogue writer R >> Read More... (Uday Shankar’s younger brother) and got married to him in 1941. Shankar fell ill once and was forced to stop dancing.

During that period she took to training under Ustad Abdul Rehman Khan in Hindustani shastriya sangeet. She also learned to play sitar from Ravi Shankar Ravi Shankar is a music director cum programmer in >> Read More... , who also happened to be her brother-in-law. She performed with him at the Ravi Shankar’s Music Festival from India in Europe in 1974 and also went on a musical tour with him and George Harrison in America. She was also a part of the album Shankar Family & Friends, which was produced by George Harrison in 1974. She composed Bharatanatyam music for the Shakti School of Bharatanatyam (Los Angeles), in the United States of America. She died in Simi Valley, California, United States in 2013 at the age of 87.