Anoushka Shankar lands dual Grammy nominations, opens up about returning to Bollywood

Anoushka Shankar has landed not one but two Grammy nominations this year. The British-American sitar player who is adept at playing all kinds of genres like classical, contemporary, acoustic and electronic, continues to push the boundaries as a composer and a sitarist. 

Not the first time for Anoushka, but truly a special one, she says. Over the years, Anoushka has been nominated a whopping 11 times for the prestigious Grammy Awards. This year too, Shankar has two Grammy nominations for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album for Chapter II. 

Anoushka on getting dual Grammy nominations

On getting the well deserved nod, Anoushka expressed gratitude and said, "It's been a long journey with the Grammys. I'm particularly happy that my album has been nominated, as I'm really proud of this piece of work."

Given that Anoushka and her sister Norah have had a shared journey at the Grammys, the sitarist opened up about the same. "This is the third year that my sister and I have been nominated at the same time. I was also with her the year she was nominated for five Grammys and won all five; that was also the year of my first nomination. Two years ago, we walked the red carpet together. So, it's been a long kind of shared journey as a family celebrating each other's success," she shared.

Is Bollywood in the scheme of things?

Anoushka Shankar is also keen on exploring opportunities in Bollywood. She was a part of the 2004 film Dance Like A Man, where she starred alongside Shobhna, Arif Zakaria, and Samir Soni. When asked if she would like to get back to Bollywood, the singer said, "Acting in a film? You know what, I would really love to do it again because there were some ways in which that was really fun. But I was 20, and I was very shy. I feel a lot more confident now, and it would be a really cool thing to do." 

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Anoushka Shankar will mark 30 years in music in 2025. She is currently looking forward to her US tour in March 2025, an India tour in December 2025, and the release of her upcoming album Chapter 3 in February-March 2025.