ABSTRACT
A tall angular gentleman is delivering his prerecorded monologue about last summer’s visit to Madras. Two Indians in mercantile mufti are warbling metaphysics: “One must live alone to survive in the modern world.”Ravi Shankar stands untouched amid all that grasping splendor. He neither accepts nor rejects the adulation, but watches it all with ice-and-fire eyes. He wears the expression of a man who has been complimented many times for speaking English well, even though it is his nation’s official language. The very rebellion against slick that once drove hippies to purist folk sounds now puts them into raga. Ravi Shankar’s pivotal place in the teenie underground became assured last year when George Harrison named him personal mentor. The master was not so sure at first that he wanted the honor. He met George at a dinner party last June. Ravi Shankar greets the great glance Eastward by glancing back.
