**DOUGLAS KNIGHT** Douglas Knight is an American musician and independent scholar whose personal and artistic relationship with India and Balasaraswati's family began in the late 1960s. He was a mridangam student of Balasaraswati's brother T. Ranganathan and her mridangam accompanist K. Kuppuswami Mudaliar. He was a regular accompanist for Balasarawati's daughter, Lakshmi Knight, and presently plays for her grandson, Aniruddha Knight. Douglas Knight has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow of the Asian Cultural Council and the American Institute of Indian Studies. In 2003 he was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. He has taught in several American colleges and Universities. The following article includes excerpts from an upcoming biography, *Balasaraswati, Her Life and Art*, to be published in June 2010, by Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved by Douglas Knight. I think of Balasaraswati as both a great teacher and a great learner. By the time I first met her in