Varanasi is the common name for the city now known as Varanasi. It is the holiest city for Hindus, as well as for Buddhists (the Buddha preached his first sermon there) and for Jains, a smaller religion in India.

It is set on the banks of the sacred river of Hinduism, the Ganges.

Varanasi is almost certainly the oldest city in India and possibly the oldest city in the world.

It contains many temples, which have steep stairs leading to the Ganges. These are used as colorful backgrounds in many Bollywood movies.

There are three ragas included on this CD: Raga Puriya Kalyan, Raga Pilu and Raga Darbari.

It seems misleading to link them all to Varanasi or Varanasi. It is very likely that they were all recorded in that city, but they are also played in other parts of India.

The first two are ragas associated with the night. This is not true for the third.

But really, who cares if it sounds good?

The raga is performed by Debendra Krishna Chattopadhyay on sitar and Surendra Mohan Mishra on tabla. It sounds quite familiar to those of us whose first introduction to Indian music was Ravi Shankar’s albums, thanks to The Beatles, especially George Harrison.

Reportedly, while filming his second movie, Help! George met two Indian musicians who were used as extras in a restaurant scene. They told him that he should seek out a true musical master, Ravi Shankar.

George did and became Ravi’s student. Before long, he was using strange-sounding sitar music on some Beatles releases, such as Norwegian Wood.

Ravi was not a stranger to the rest of the world, some Indian sage hiding in the mountains. He had danced on the Carnegie Hall stage back in 1936. He had been a musician, writer, and performer for many years. He had won awards for his movie soundtracks.

When his fellow Bengalis were being massacred in East Pakistan (which became Bangladesh after it managed to secede from West Pakistan, which is the country we now know as Pakistan), he asked George Harrison for help in raising funds.

So George organized the first rock benefit concert, The Concert for Bangladesh. All proceeds from the concert, 3-disc album and film go to Unicef ​​to help.

Ragu Pilus is played by Amiya Bhattacharya in surbahar and Narayan Chakravorty in tambura.

Raga Darbari is performed by Narayan Chakravorty in vicitra vina.

His association with George Harrison opened many more doors for Ravi Shankar to continue giving concerts around the world, many in collaboration with artists from various musical cultures and traditions. It is obvious that he believed in enriching world music by combining the best of all worlds.

However, this album reminds us that India has many other talented musicians, and anyone who is interested in this form of music is worth having. It is true that, in the West, it is still a minority taste.