The 64th Annual Grammy Awards were held on Sunday and Indian music composer and environmentalist Ricky Kej claimed his second Grammy at the grand ceremony. The Indian musician was awarded the Best New Age Album award for Divine Tides along with Stewart Copeland, who is the founder and drummer of the legendary rock band, The Police. Now, while receiving the award at the ceremony, when Ricky stepped up on the stage along with Stewart, the former remembered his roots and touched Stewart’s feet. Acknowledging the same, Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon praised the musician for “respecting his guru”.
For those who don’t know, Ricky has often spoken about how much he looks up to the veteran musician, and now sharing the stage with him must surely be overwhelming for Ricky. This is Stewart’s sixth Grammy. As Stewart was about to start his acceptance speech, Ricky bent down and touched his feet as a mark of respect.
On Twitter, Raveena shared a video of the moment and wrote, “Second Grammy for Ricky Kej. So so proud. Brings the divinity of our culture to an international stage. Coexistence, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, love, and respect for life, all species. Pays respect to his guru.” The actress ended her caption with a hashtag “proud to be Indian.”
Ricky acknowledged Raveena’s post and took to the comments section to write, “Thank you so much for posting. Means a lot.” Several fans appreciated the gesture of Ricky and flooded the comments section with praises. In a reply to the actress’ tweet, one user commented, “Ricky Kej it is an astounding moment for us to witness touching the feet of your guru on an international stage following our roots.”
Another tweet read, “That gives us a sense of self-esteem & pride in our culture & traditions.” The musician is a Bengaluru-based dentist-turned-music composer and environmentalist. As per his bio, Ricky was born in 1981 in North Carolina and is half-Punjabi, and half-Marwari. Ricky has lived in Bengaluru since he was 8 years old.
