Anoushka Shankar rubbishes Rishab Rikhiram's 'last disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar' claim; praises him for his talent

Sitarist Rishab Rikhiram Sharma often called himself the "last and youngest disciple" of the legendary Pandit Ravi Shankar. He has introduced himself with this in several of his interviews.

However, the legendary Pandit Ravi Shankar's daughter, Anoushka Shankar, addressed the claim and stated that he was never a formal disciple of her father.

Anoushka Shankar addresses Rishab Rikhiram Sharma's claims

In an interaction with the Humans of Bombay, Anoushka praised Rishab Rikhiram Sharma's talent and also addressed the claims he made. She said, "Rishab is really talented, and he is clearly speaking to people in a really wonderful way. I think there is some misunderstanding about his guruship.

He learned very intensively with someone very dear to me, one of my father’s senior disciples, Parimal Sadaphal, and he had a couple of lessons with my father, very informally, with Parimal uncle also in the room.

"She further elaborated on the same, saying, "We knew him (Rishab) from childhood because he was the son of our instrument maker Sanjay Rikiram Sharma. So somehow that has gone blown up into some story of him being his last disciple or the youngest disciple, which isn’t true.

But he is super talented and deserves all success with or without that story."

What did Rishab Rikhiram Sharma say?

In his interview with WION, Rishab Rikhiram Sharma stated that whatever he is today is because of his guru, Pandit Ravi Shankar. He said, "I have to say it’s my guru, Pandit Ravi Shankar. Whatever I know is because of him and his disciples, who taught me after his demise. They showed me his way, and it was not that they just taught me his compositions, but they taught me how to think like him."