Based on conversations with Steve & Mrityunjay, this booklet reveals how Sunil created his music—its voices, instruments, methods, struggles, & unique sound.
“That is the voice I was always hoping for.”
— Rajuta, on Minnie’s singing
Sunil had no staff notation to place before his singers. He taught entirely by demonstration: playing the melody on the organ, singing it softly beside them, repeating until they had absorbed it. It was the natural method of the Indian musical tradition.
“The Indian singers — Manoj, Minnie, Ravi, and later Toret — did not practise separately. They would come in together in the morning, gather around the organ, and Sunil would play and softly sing the melody to them. You could not hear it from across the room; he was singing very quietly, right beside them. They would go over it repeatedly, then walk to the microphone and record.”
— Steve
The core of Sunil’s vocal ensemble over the decades was small and intimate. Manoj and Ravi were among the earliest. Ravi’s eventual departure for Canada was a genuine loss:
“Sunil was quite upset when she eventually left to move to Canada with her husband. He said, ‘I am losing my singer.’ She had a high, very sweet tone that he valued greatly. Rajuta spoke warmly of her voice too — after hearing the New Year music that Minnie had sung, she said, ‘That is the voice I was always hoping for.’”
Minnie brought an unusual vocal versatility: a European singer had at some point taught members of the Ashram community to sing from the diaphragm rather than from the throat. Minnie learned both techniques.
“Minnie learned that technique, so she could actually sing both ways. That breadth became part of what Sunil valued in her.”
Toret, who joined around 1974 or 1975, offered a different quality:
“Toret, who joined around 1974 or 1975, brought a different quality from Manoj — a deeper, smoother voice; he was semi-professional, I think.”
Beatrice, an Italian opera singer, represented a completely different approach to Sunil’s process of teaching vocalists. Where the Indian singers learned at the organ by ear, Beatrice required advance preparation.
“She was a professional and would not sing without first practising on her own. The first time she came, Victor made a cassette for her so she could prepare at home. By her second visit, Patrick was here and he wrote out proper notation for her. She would practise in advance, arrive, and sing. She appears in three Savitri pieces, and Sunil was genuinely glad to have her.”
With singers, as with instrumentalists, Sunil’s preference for first takes applied. The feeling was paramount.
“He disliked multiple takes — he felt that if you did too many, you lost the feeling. So unless there was an obvious mistake, the first take was the one he kept.”
“Without a word exchanged, they would simply begin playing.”
— Mrityunjay Sathyanarayanan, on Sunil and Kanak-da
Kanak-da — the guitarist who played slide guitar and various other forms — was Sunil’s most constant musical companion, present from the earliest years of the new music until the very end. Their working method required no preliminary conversation:
“Kanak-da would come into the room, Sunil Da would be at the organ, and without a word exchanged, they would simply begin playing. For music connected to something as weighty as the New Year invocations or Savitri, you might expect some kind of spiritual discussion beforehand — but no. They just played, as musicians do.”
— Mrityunjay Sathyanarayanan
Steve recalls that Kanak-da’s transition to entirely live guitar playing is audible in the early recordings:
“If you listen to those earliest pieces in his new style — Aspiration and Devotion, from December 1954 — you can actually hear the moment of transition. The whole group is playing, and then suddenly they drop out, leaving only the reed organ and Kanat’s guitar. That is precisely where the new music begins.”
Victor Jauhar became Sunil’s recording assistant through a story that captures both the Mother’s guidance and a moment of comic honesty. Victor had gone to the Mother wanting to leave school in order to focus on the piano. She told him to sit at the piano, place his hands, and the music would come.
“He did exactly that — and nothing came. He went to Sunil and told him, and Sunil burst out laughing. ‘Only the Mother could say that,’ he said, and directed Victor to a Greek pianist who taught in a house on Rue François Martin.”
Simultaneously, the Mother appointed Victor as Sunil’s recording assistant. He served in that role from the mid-1960s onwards, handling the two-track sessions that preceded multitrack recording.
Patrick’s arrival in 1984 ushered in the synthesiser era. His role was multiple: he brought the equipment, auditioned sounds during morning practice sessions, eventually wrote formal notation for Beatrice, and over time moved his own guitar contributions from live performance to sequencer.
During morning sessions:
“Sunil would come in the morning, begin playing, and Patrick would audition different sounds while he practised; Sunil would choose which ones he liked.”
Gambelon, a devotee who lived partly in France and partly in Pondicherry, occupied a quieter role: a devoted friend who provided, at critical moments, what the music needed. He sent the Farfisa organ from Europe. He brought tapes when the studio ran out. He gave Sunil the recording of the Ondes Martenot. He described the 1974 New Year music — the first composed after the Mother’s passing in November 1973 — as “the requiem of the Mother.”
Sunil was hurt by the departure of the Indian musicians who had been part of his early ensemble. Steve’s understanding is that the separation was essentially one of musical language:
“I think the issue was essentially one of playing style — and perhaps tuning. Sunil was moving towards Western equal temperament, and the Indian musicians were trained in a different tuning system entirely. It may not have been stubbornness on their part; retuning one’s ear and one’s instrument is a genuine undertaking.”
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