ANOUSHKA SHANKAR

I love it that my father is such a classical musician and such a traditionalist, and at the same time has had a wild life and a crazy time.

I am a very curious person, not just about my life in music. I love arts and creativity.

I listen to many forms of music. And I come from a very particular style and tradition of music, which has certain elements that are absolutely unique and, therefore, important to the world.

But when culture becomes a baggage, things don't work. What is good about anything that feels like a baggage? I think we should let go when it feels like a burden. Hold on to the things you love. Then it will be a natural process.

I feel a lot closer to music and my relationship with my instrument than I did as a teenager. I have an adult perspective now about getting to do something I love for a living.

Writing can flow out when I'm feeling something strongly, whether that's joy, pain, fear, desire or anything else. The challenge is actually later, in the second or third or 100th draft of the music, when it can be so easy to cover up the original sentiments by making the music more ornate or cloaked.

I ate Bengali food after my parents married and Dad started living with us, in both Willesden and in Delhi for three years, and then we all moved to California. Dad said he could make a really good dal, but I never saw him cook during the whole time we lived together.

On 'Love Letters' I focused exclusively on sung music, creating a collection of songs that directly address heartbreak and its ensuing emotions in a way that instrumental music can only hint at.

However, I need to make music that represents my inner truth and inner voice. I've found myself more able to do that within an international space that has an Indianness at its root but branches out to encompass sounds and cultures across borders.

Writing for a film means the music has to serve the film, the narrative.

George Harrison became my uncle - not by blood but through love. It's sort of an Indian cultural thing.

I hope it isn't exclusively true, but I often find that collaboration is the best way... to reach my highest musical place. Because I get so inspired by another good musician; I feed off that.

I lived with my teacher and he was my father and he practiced every day so I practiced every day and we practiced every day together.

Usually, I really only look at any one particular album at a time when I'm making it. I've never really sat and looked at the journey through all of my albums to see if I could find a thread through them.

I would write songs, inspired by my baby, but then I could tell that my baby was also responding to the music. It was just kind of an amazing musical experience.

My father taught me to play the sitar when I was seven years old. He and his elder disciples oversaw my teaching from the beginning, looking after my scale work, the poor things.

Everybody gets opportunities; what you do with them is up to you.

Having my own studio at home is a dream, as I have a totally sound-proof room I can escape to when I need to write, and I have an impeccable room to record in.

I have that typical girly aspect to me and those domestic ideals. When I cook in my kitchen it's like playing a game because it's not real for me; room service is.

We need more women in positions of power so that women's issues are thought of more, because a room full of men in government and in power don't think the type of things needed to make a change.

I realised how rarely women are involved in all aspects of the music making, how rarely I've worked with female engineers. That became something that I started looking at as well. How many women can I bring into the project across the board.

There's a very primal, emotional response I feel when I hear flamenco.

I think I've been lucky to work with so many lovely people. But there's Joshua Bell, who's the world's greatest violinist. We worked together live and once, for his record, but I really would want to work with him on one of my records.

As a disciple of my father's, I was certain I wanted to include one of his own raga creations on 'Home', as they are so beautiful; whilst many of his creations are part of the general classical repertoire for all musicians, many more are only played by those of us who learned from him, and therefore need to be played.

I'm not pretending I can change the world, or to be an expert on social and political affairs. But I certainly have a right to say when something is wrong.