Geethali, meet Mathangi
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Ravi Shankar and Norah Jones |
In a recent 60 Minutes interview (watch here), Norah Jones said again that she feels more Texan than desi (via SAJA Forum):
Anoushka and Norah
Born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar, she dropped the first and last parts of the name when she turned 16. [Link]
“Do you consider yourself part Indian?” Couric asks. “I grew up in Texas with a white mother,” Jones says. “I feel very Texan, actually and New York. New Yorker…” [Link]
… she feels disconnected from the Indian side of her heritage. “I’ve been to India, but I am not really involved at all,” she says. “I’m close to my half-sister Anoushka… and she is very Indian, but I haven’t really taken an interest in the country. Maybe some day I will study it more, but I didn’t grow up around Indian culture at all… so it’s not, like, inside me…”
“I knew who my dad was,” she says. “I saw him sporadically until I was nine and then I didn’t see him again or talk to him until I was 18.” Shankar never married her mother - their relationship, Norah says, was complicated and it ended when she was young. [Link]
Jones’s mother, Sue Jones, who has been a dancer, producer and a nurse, had a nine-year relationship with Ravi Shankar, towards the end of which Norah was born. [Link]
Norah and Anoushka
I was working in a hotel in Trivandrum… in 2000/2001. Mr. Shankar had come to perform there and his daughter Anoushka had come as well… Norah had come with them to India and she stayed in our hotel… both the sisters used to go to the beach. Norah wore Indian clothes… She seemed so close to her father and he was so proud of her… she was I think called Geeta or something like that. [Link]
“I was just interested in having a dad for a long time, and I was almost annoyed that he was a famous musician. And now I’m like: ‘Oh, my God, John Coltrane came to him for a lesson. Forget George Harrison. I want to know about his afternoon with John Coltrane.’ ” [Link]
I believe that at one point, Norah Jones and M. Night Shyamalan simultaneously had the top album and the top movie in the U.S.:
Norah Jones has sold more albums than any other female artist this decade, over 30 million. [Link]
Two days after her Grammys success, the New York Post ran a picture of her flat on its front page, beneath the headline: “Grammy Queen Norah’s $1,400 Brooklyn Digs”. The article revealed that despite having sold seven million records, Jones still [lived] in a cramped, student-style shared flat in Williamsburg, a trendy but grungy enclave of Brooklyn… [Link]
She now lives in a multi-million dollar apartment in New York’s Cooper Square. [Link]
Dooce wanted to name her baby ‘Norah Jones Armstrong,’ because Geethali wouldn’t have the same ring 
I’m sitting behind Norah Jones on a motherfucking golf cart… they all come screaming out of the bushes like crazed, ferocious werewolves… Norah turns around, eyes on fire… she reaches back to cover my stomach and screams, “This woman is pregnant, you idiots!” … I have officially decided that regardless of the sex, this baby will be named Norah Jones Armstrong. [Link]
It’s so poignant how M.I.A.’s first album title, ‘Arular,’ was a shout-out to her absent dad, while Norah is just as intently avoiding being called the daughter of someone famous:
When Norah turned 18, she sought out her father, who was living in California with his daughter and second wife. Asked if she was angry or sought an apology from her father when they reconnected, Jones says, “Yeah. I might have. I might have wanted that.” Today she says they are close. [Link]
John Mayer said it well in ‘Daughters,’ where he spells out the insecurities that often form when fathers disappear:
… she’s just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change…
Now I’m starting to see
Maybe it’s got nothing to do with me…… the day she saw him walking away
Now she’s left
Cleaning up the mess he made…
On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her worldSo fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do… [Link]
Her new album, Not Too Late, is probably a reference to impeachment given the anti-war tinge of several of the songs. But it could just as easily be read as paternal reconciliation:
… in the album’s first song, “Wish I Could…”… a girlfriend pulls her in, grieving that her man, a soldier, has been killed in the war. The song deepens from plaintiveness to irrevocable sorrow. Jones wrote it, she said, while thinking about a soldier she dated soon after she arrived in New York City in 1999. She recently tried to find information on him, with no results. “I’m worried about him,” she said…
Much of Not Too Late was recorded in the home studio at the loft Jones shares with Alexander. They met when she was looking for a bass player for a brunch gig singing jazz at the Washington Square Hotel, where she was also a waitress. Adam Levy, who’s still the guitarist in her band, gave her a list, “and I lucked out because I think the list was alphabetical,” Alexander said. He had just gotten a cell phone; Jones’ call was the first to come through. [Link]
on Thursday, February 15th, 2007, 8:14 am in Music, Profiles › 
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There is something very very wrong here and somebody is hiding something.I know Geetu came to India at least 5 times and lived with Panditji (Bharat Ratna Ravi Shankar). She lived with him in Delhi and Benares and also travelled to kashmir. I know Panditji also stayed with Geetali’s mother in New York until she was 4 years old.I wish Panditji would come out and talk and tell the truth. Is Norah’s? mother hoodwinking her to belive that she had to sacrifice so much to take care of her? Somebody ought to challenge that as we know Panditji maintened them and it was Norah’s mother who took her away from her father and Panditji never abondoned his daughter.By the way Geetali darling, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for speaking like that. You have your fathers genes and we have seen you sitting in on Panditji’s class when you were young in Delhi…. You look more Indian than Anushka. Do you have any American blood at all? Is ther something else you are hiding?/
“I love my dad, you know, and we’ve gotten a lot closer in the past few years. But it still wouldn’t be appropriate to make a big deal out of the fact that I have a famous dad. I didn’t want to do that. People took it really personally, like I snubbed my dad or something, but that’s bullshit!” she taps my arm, smiles sheepishly and apologises for swearing, before continuing.
“I think my dad is a brilliant musician, but our music has nothing to do with each other and I don’t feel comfortable with the headline ‘Daughter of Ravi Shankar, Norah Jones’.
“I mean, I’m closer to my mother, Sue, than any other human being,” she says. “But I wouldn’t want to be known as ‘Sue Jones’s daughter’ for my music, either. My dad knows I love him and it’s unfortunate that so much stuff has been written about me snubbing him, because it really hurts his feelings.”. I think we should leave her alone now. Father and daughter have made up and they both love each other and the sisters are very close. Why keep opening up a closed wound
ravi shankar was a two timing bastard who wanted to have his cake and eat it too.
Being a good musician doesnt make you a good father (neither does being the ‘father of the nation’, which gandhi, another bad dad will agree to)
There’s simply no excuse for being a bad father and he should be ashamed of himself.
women deserve a lot more than assholes like him. period.
manish: so glad you wrote about this, i watched the interview, and was wondering when someone who comment about her comments ;)..
ravi is a 2 timing old bastard. he can play a sitar like a MF genius… he still is a dog…
I blogged about this yesterday. So what is the big deal if she said she considered herself more of a Texan or New Yorker? She was brought up by a single white mother and rarely met her father between the ages of 9 and 18, the most developmental years in any one’s life. Genetically she may be part-Indian but that is not how she feels. It’s like people are almost taking that comment personally.
Suede, totally agree with you.
Men get away with so much bad behavior anyway, and multiply that by lots when the guy becomes famous.
Interesting but history has shown that “these” famous men seem to have very famous “illegitimate” children.
And the wealth and fame that come with being famous offspring, do they erase whatever ill effects of the absence of a father from a huge chunk of the kid’s formative years?
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I saw this interview on sixty minutes.
Norah jones honest self comes through the interview.
She was honest and subtle when Couric asked her if she feels anger towards her father for not being there for her from ages 4-18, she said she felt something like that and avoided saying anything negative.
She says she lived mostly in Texas and NY, so feels like a NYorker or a Texan than an Indian which is also realistic…Its hard to feel emotions for someone who left you during the most formative years of your life. I agree with Norah..
she was so down to earth despite all the success and so genuine..
Iam looking forward to her third album, she admits she has some politically inclined songs in there and said she was not scared that her audience would react the way they reacted to Dixie chicks..glad she is honest and who cares..Dixie chicks after all came back with yet another honest album”not ready to make nice” and even won grammys..Iam glad singers are coming out to express their opinions on worlds problems and Iam sure Norah is so talented she might walk away with more grammys.
Well good for her. She has no obligation to “be Indian”. Shyamalan isn’t Indian, neither is that guy from Broken Lizard. They don’t want to be in our club, even if we have their pictures up everytime they’re mentioned in the press and use them as some sort of scale for the popularity & progress of the race. What is this, the brown mafia? Go find some other golden calf.
It’s the equivalent of noticing an Indian person from across the street or at the grocery store. All of a sudden, everyone’s ears perk up at the sight of brown.
Nothing against you guys or this blog. Just a general observation.