Ravi & Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka played the first set alone and she was mesmerizing, swaying back and forth as her hands moved ever more quickly along the enormous fretboard. Fascinating as it was, I must admit that in my first live encounter, I found classical Indian music somewhat unaccessible. It was repetitive yet hard to follow. I got lost. I got bored. Everyone was so still. By the end of the evening, however, I was completely entranced, as the music finally began to sound familiar and the complicated rhythms began to fit together in my head.

Ravi came out for the second set assisted by one of his students, and he explained that he has to sit on a low wooden platform because he can no longer sit cross-legged on the floor after his bout with a virus that nearly killed him six months ago. In his words, he said he was "going, going," but his wife and family took such good care of him that he recovered. He is 87, and he looked so frail; his hands shook as he began playing, and many of the notes were inaccurate. As the hour went by, though, he warmed up - as if impelled by the amazing tabla player from Calcutta, with whom he had a seamless connection - and he regained much of his old vigor and virtuosity. His hands began to dance more quickly and powerfully up and down the neck of his sitar, and suddenly he was playing the most difficult runs without any sign of effort. He and Anoushka traded solos, mimicking each other and creating new conversations, calling and responding, as they built a thirty-minute raga to an unbelievable crescendo. The tabla player soloed like a madman for a good two minutes straight, and immediately upon finishing, he responded to the thunderous applause by simply pressing his hands together in prayer and touching them to his forehead. What a wonderful touch of humility - a requirement for any aspiring musician.

At the end of the show all the performers bowed to touch Ravi's feet before hugging him, and as they led him off stage, it was impossible to think that just minutes before he had been the source of all that sound! Now he was just a frail old man smiling and waving to the crowd.