Anushka Shankar's solo sitar act in Avijatrik's opening title track is tribute to father Ravi Shankar

Grammy Award-winning sitarist and composer Anushka Shankar has played in the opening title track for Subhrajit Mitra’s upcoming film Avijatrik (2020), produced by Madhur Bhandarkar and Gaurang Jalan. Shankar’s rendition is a tribute to her late father Pandit Ravi Shankar, who originally composed for Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy, based on Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s novels Pather Panchali and Aparajito. 

Featuring Arjun Chakraborty, Ditipriya Roy, Sreelekha Mitra, Arpita Chatterjee, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Shubhro S Das, the film takes off from where Ray’s Apur Sansar (1959), the last of the trilogy, ended. Bickram Ghosh has composed music for the film, which has been shot in monochrome to retain the authentic essence of the story’s time period.

“I wouldn’t say I am giving music, but I’ve made a very small contribution to the soundtrack playing my sitar for the opening, which was really lovely to get to do on this really special project,” stated the celebrated artiste in an interview with the daily National Herald.

According to Ghosh, Shankar has played a solo sitar piece, which has been recreated from her father’s Pather Panchali (1955) theme. He also mentioned that the film's background score and music are primarily based on various ragas from Hindustani classical music and have been imbued with folk elements too.

“My father contributed such iconic music to the original trilogy, which is kind of remembered the world over as some of the best music for film ever written. So I’ve obviously grown up knowing and loving that music. To play a small part with the continuation of that story feels beautiful,” added the daughter of the legendary sitar maestro, who was responsible for introducing Indian classical music to the West.