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"Although guitar is a foreign instrument, he has a tremendous command over it. He has given a new dimension to it by merging the sound and style of guitar, sitar and sarod. The effect of his playing is unique."--Ravi Shankar on Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.

Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt was born in 1952, of a musical family of Jaipur in Rajasthan. He received his initial training from his older brother Shashi Mohan, and is now a disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar. His nephew, the sitar player Krishna Bhatt, is another well known name in the West.

Bhatt modified a six-string Hawaiian guitar by adding several chikari (drone strings) and sympathetic strings, which resonate in the backdrop to the notes of the main tune. This hybrid instrument, which Bhatt calls the Mohan Veena, is played like a Hawaiian slide guitar, and is ideally suited for the sustained, sliding notes of Indian classical music.