Rishab Rikhiram Sharma, a musician and sitarist, can respect his position in the music industry while establishing his own style.

It's not an easy task to carry on two traditions when the world recognises you as the great-grandson of music instrument inventor Pandit Rikhi Ram Sharma and the final student of the renowned Indian sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar.

Rishab lists his blessings and gives credit to his teachers, or gurus, for helping him become a well known figure, particularly following the success of his most recent Sitar for Mental Health India Tour.

He shares, “There is a lot of self-talk that goes into thinking, if not me then who’s gonna take [the legacy] forward? One is my guru's legacy and the other is my family's legacy. I need to carry both of these with equal weight... But, you know, I'm very determined to take it forward… After I lost my guruji (in 2012) – it was a huge loss for the music world and basically it was like the whole industry was orphaned. Death of him and Ustad Zakir Hussain (in 2024) are the two biggest losses, even in our music. When I lost them, I had no role models to look up to. That’s when I looked at myself and thought ‘I’m gonna be that someone who a child would look up to’.”

When he first met Pandit Ravi Shankar at the age of eleven, the same assurance was evident in his sparkling eyes.

“Imagine an 89 years old man scrolling YouTube, on his iPad, and discovering my video of playing sitar... that’s how he found me... In any field, guru is a person who shows you the light. And the most important thing that my guruji taught me was ‘how to think’. He never asked me to copy him. Viewing music through his lens, I developed my own way of looking at things. Today, my music is a reflection of who I am as a person,” he opines.

“You won’t believe it, there was this one time when I forgot the second half of a [music piece],” he recalls, adding, “That night when I went to bed, guruji came in my dream and reminded me how that composition is to be played. Whether it’s your subconscious mind or whatever, but if you have that connection with your guru then they would even come in your dreams to teach you.”