Singer Shilpa Rao has added yet another feather to her cap. Anoushka Shankar’s album Love Letters which has been nominated for the Best Global Music Album for this year’s Grammy Awards, also features a track by Rao. And she is absolutely thrilled with this development.

“We have been waiting for this day since quite a while. It has been a long journey for me as well as for the song. It is surreal. I have been trying to pin down one emotion but I don’t know what exactly I am feeling. It has added another thought in my heart that I cannot make any more excuses now. I just have to work harder,” she says.

Rao, whose track, Those Words, was part of Shankar’s album, is happy that Indian music is being recognised globally. “I’ve been learning Indian music since I was a kid and I have no qualms in saying that Indian music is one of the most progressive kinds of music in the world. It’s high time our own youth owns it, listens to it with pride and propagates it. Our youth is still not owning it entirely and they don’t find it cool. When you are born into a family, you inherit the entire legacy by virtue of birth. In the same way, when you are born as an Indian, you inherit the culture, the goodness and all the great things by virtue of being born in India. Sadly, we have not celebrated our music as much as we should have. But I am still hopeful. And with this news, maybe one young kid somewhere will look at our music differently,” adds Rao.

The awards will be announced on January 21, and the singer says that the nomination in itself is an achievement.

“It will be great if we win, and even if we don’t, we will keep doing what we do. Even if my song doesn’t work, it doesn’t throw me off from sitting and doing my riyaaz. I still do it. Failure is inevitable and if you are not facing failure, you are not doing something right. You need to pi** off people, you need to not agree with at least some people because that means you have a unique idea that represents you, and that is what artistes do. Doing something that works is an easy way out but being yourself is the most difficult thing in this world,” signs off Rao.