India, Feb. 20 -- Just days after late sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar's daughter, sitarist Anoushka Shankar (44) said Rishab Rikhiram Sharma (27) was not a formal disciple of her father, his team tells us: "Rishab is Pandit ji's youngest and last disciple. This is an authenticated and documented fact, and it is not open to speculation or challenge." His team also provided HT City with archival footage and photographs, including from a Ganda Badhan ceremony dated January 3, 2013 at the Ravi Shankar Centre, where the maestro formally tied the traditional thread and accepted Rishab as a disciple. They tell us exclusively, "Rishab honours his Guru through unwavering riyaaz, humility and lifelong service to the art form, not through public rhetoric. We strongly urge audiences to rely on documented archival evidence and to respect the sanctity of India's guru-shishya tradition before forming narratives that risk diminishing a sacred cultural lineage. Any attempt now to cast doubt on this long-established acknowledgement disregards both historical record and the sanctity of the guru-shishya parampara." Anoushka had recently told Humans of Bombay, "There is some misunderstanding about his guruship... He had a couple of lessons with my father, very informally. That's blown up into a story of him being his last disciple or youngest disciple, which isn't true." We reached out to Anoushka for a comment, but received no response till the time of going to press....