Born on April 7, 1920, at Varanasi near Benares in West Bengal into an orthodox, well-off Brahmin family, Rabindra Shankar Chowdery's father, ShyÆm Shankar, was employed as a diwan (minister) by the Maharajah of Jhalawar. By the age of 13, Ravi Shankar was going along on every tour of his brother Uday Shankar's Compaigne de Danse et Musique Hindou (Company of Hindu Dance and Music). At the All-Bengali Music Conference in December 1934 he met the multi-instrumentalist Allauddin Khan. Precisely when Allauddin Khan was born is uncertain. People hazard dates in the 1860s around 1862 but in later years he himself gave his age haphazardly. He would transform many musicians' lives but he had an incalculable effect on Ali Akbar (his son), Annapurna Devi (his daughter) and Ravi Shankar himself.

Allauddin Khan joined Uday's troupe as its principal soloist around 1935-36. In 1938 Ravi Shankar gave up a potential career as a dancer and went to study with Allauddin Khan in Maihar. In 1939 he began giving public recitals and came out of training at the end of 1944. Until 1948 he based himself in Bombay and gave programmes all over India. He toured and wrote for films and ballet. Around this time he began his recording career with a small session for HMV (India). Work for All India Radio followed -- as music director from February 1949 to January 1956 in New Delhi. Concurrently, his international star was on the rise. In 1954 he performed in the Soviet Union. In 1956 he played his debut solo concerts in Western Europe and the U.S. Within a decade he would be the most famous Indian musician on the planet. Within two decades he would become probably the most famous Indian alive. His English-language autobiography, My Music, My Life (1969) is still one of the best general introductions to Hindustani music.