A film archivist hoping to find movie posters at a scrap shop stumbled on a treasure trove of rare photographs of legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar as well as his musical notes and illustrations.
A delighted S M M Ausaja said the unknowing scrap dealer in Mahim gave him a suitcase and told him that it belonged to a musician.
Ausaja took it home and was gobsmacked to find that it contained rare documents of the late musician, credited with taking the sounds of the sitar to music aficionados across the world.
"When I opened the suitcase and started going through the documents, I realised how big a part it was of our cultural heritage. If this can happen to a Bharat Ratna, just imagine what will happen to others when they are gone. It is really sad. I thought it was my duty towards my nature to at least ensure that this gets restored," Ausaja told PTI in an interview.
"The guy who gave me the suitcase did not know about Ravi Shankar. He said this is about some musician. But I was startled to see the material."
"This contains his personal notes on some of the greatest performances he had given, musical notes written in his own handwriting and illustrations done by his son Shubho, who was an illustrator. He had also made a sketch of his father."
"There are pages which are torn, photographs that need to restored and artworks in need of repair. After restoration, the second step is documentation. The material is so frail and delicate."
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