This year has been quite rewarding for composer-singer Shankar Mahadevan . Besides winning a Grammy Award in February, he was also conferred his second honorary doctorate in March. Now, he has been honoured with his third honorary doctorate.
Soon after receiving the honour in Kolkata, he exclusively tells us, “Getting a doctorate for my contribution as a musician is a huge honour. It also makes you realise your responsibility towards the craft. But more than receiving the doctorate, what makes it more special is the kind of people you receive it with.
I feel blessed that I got to be on the same dias as (lyricist) Gulzar sahab and (actor) Shabana Azmi ji to (former tennis player) Leander Paes, who also received the doctorate.” Mahadevan adds, “Our former President Ram Nath Kovind ji was at the event too.” The doctorate was conferred on him by the Techno India University in Kolkata.
While his first doctorate was by Birmingham City University (UK), the second one was by DY Patil University, Navi Mumbai. Ask how being addressed as Dr Shankar Mahadevan feels like, the musician laughs, “I feel a little shy and embarrassed, because I'd never thought that I would receive three doctorates in life.” The musician goes on to credit these honours to the kind of work he has managed to do in his almost four-decade-long music career.
He says, "But, I feel lucky that I got to associate with the right people, at the right time, for the right kind of work. God has been kind." In February, Mahadevan and his band, Shakti, won the Best Global Album Award for their first studio album, This Moment.
Talking to us right after the event in Los Angeles, where he received the Grammy with his bandmates V Selvaganesh (percussionist) and Ganesh Rajagopalan (violinist), Mahadevan said, “When our name was announced, for a second it didn’t register. We were so elated. It’s very difficult to express the feeling.
”.
