Anoushka Shankar, an accomplished sitar player herself, in a video message through online petition site change.org in the wake of the Delhi gangrape and consequent protests across India, said she suffered sexual and emotional abuse by a man as a child from a man whom his father and mother trusted.
Calling the abuse of women as enough is enough she said: "As a child I suffered sexual and emotional abuse for several years at the hands of a man my parents trusted implicitly. Growing up, like most women I know, I suffered various forms of groping, touching, verbal abuse and other things I didn't know how to deal with, I didn't know I could change."
"As a woman I find I am frequently living in fear. Afraid to walk alone at night, afraid to answer a man who asks for the time... and enough is enough. I am rising, for (the Delhi rape victim) and women like her. I am rising with the amazing women of my country. I am rising for the child in me, who I don't think will ever forgive and recover from what happened to her," she said.
"So join me, lets rise, lets dance, let us transform ourselves, let us transform the world," the 31-year-old sitarist who is now based in London said on change.org.
Anoushka's father Pandit Ravi Shankar, legendary sitar player and brand ambassador of Indian classical music to the world, died at San Diego in USA at age 92 in December last year.