New York film-maker Howard Worth began work on "Raga", a documentary film on Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar, in 1967, during the height of what Shankar describes in "My Music, My Life" (1968), the first of his two autobiographies, as "the great sitar explosion". The latter term reflected the interest that had grown in the West for Indian music and its extended works, known as ragas, over 1966–67, following the Beatles and other rock bands' adoption of the multi-stringed sitar into their sound. Aided by his befriending George Harrison of the Beatles, this phenomenon resulted in Shankar achieving pop star status. Music critic Ken Hunt describes him as having become "the most famous Indian musician on the planet" in 1966. since his training had instilled in him a sacred purpose for India's musical heritage – namely, Nada Brahma ("Sound is God"). The film documents Shankar's concern that while old traditions were dying in India, they were simultaneously being misappropriated by America's youth culture, particularly through many in the West choosing to associate Indian classical music with psychedelic drugs.