Ravi Shankar did a great kindness to a young television director in November 1968. The great man was performing a raga in the BBC Riverside Studios (behind the Hammersmith Odeon) to be broadcast as part of the trendy BBC1 pop series How It Is. The trainee director had told the recording engineer to load a 20-minute videotape – "that'll be long enough". But it wasn't. A raga is an improvisation, unpredictable in content and length. So the tape ran out while the maestro was still playing. The director, close to tears, had to go down to the studio floor, apologise for his incompetence, and plead with the musicians, "Would you mind doing it again?" The response was a shrug, a beatific smile and: "Of course we can – and it will probably be better this time." And it was. The director was fired shortly after that, by telegram. I've still got it.
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