There is a segment in the documentary 6-A Akash Ganga on the life and legacy of Hindustani classical musician and guru Annapurna Devi where vocalist and writer Sakuntala Narasimhan recalls watching the surbahar player and her then husband Pandit Ravi Shankar performing a concert. “Ravi Shankar would play something, then wait for Annapurna ji to reproduce. And she would reproduce first-class, even better than him,” relates Narasimhan who was then a student at The Music Academy in Chennai where the duo was performing. 

“After the jhala, he started playing very fast phrases. And she played faster than him… They just went on. It was like a competition. When she played even faster than him, the whole hall burst out clapping. He got very angry… he took his hands off the sitar. Threw up his hands, saying—I accept defeat.” We are told that it was the last time he played with her.