Drawn from personal letters and reminiscences, this compilation traces Sunil’s spiritual journey and enduring musical legacy
This volume brings together a selection of letters, reminiscences, and personal reflections that illuminate the life and work of Sunil Bhattacharya, one of the most distinctive musical figures associated with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Drawn principally from Sunil’s correspondence and from accounts preserved by those who knew him, these pages offer a more intimate glimpse of the man behind the music—his aspirations, friendships, spiritual struggles, and unwavering dedication to the Divine. The recollections of those who knew him offer a glimpse of the profound impact his genius had on the lives of others.
The materials collected here were originally preserved among the extensive archival records that formed the basis of Sunil: The Mother’s Musician by Clifford Gibson. Reminiscences have also been gathered from Mother India issues and Among the Not so Great by Batti.
Satprem wrote to Sunil after hearing the music Devi Sukta:
1963
Sunil
I just listened to Devi Sukta. It is very beautiful, very moving. I want to thank you.
Could you compose many pieces like that for the joy of all? Sri Aurobindo said that the true poetry, the poetic mantra, should survive "…. the descent of the gods into life" — but the music even more! A 'mantric music' if I dare to say, I have felt a bit of that in listening to you. It's like that that I understand and I love your music.
… Again, thank you,
Satprem
*
After hearing the music Sunil had prepared for the 1965 New Year, Satprem wrote:
30.11.64
I was too far withdrawn and moved yesterday evening to speak to you. Mère told me: "Suddenly, the sound comes, which is just the sound that one hears above." It's that. There is nothing more to say, it enters suddenly, clear, clear, so pure, and everything is full. The music has no other meaning, it is the music of the future.
I have written a lot of words, but I have never caught this sound — I would like to write like you do music. Who knows, maybe one day we will do something together.
Sometime ago Mother had given me a very short musical notation of Wanda Landowska that she had found very beautiful, do you know it? It is a notation of a Polish Tzigane. There is also there something very pure. I send it to you in case you have not heard it (I have recorded it repeatedly several times). You will give me back the tape because I don't have another one.
… Thank you Sunil, your music makes life more real.
An appreciation of Stockhausen's music by Satprem, along with his response to Sunil's 1972 New Year Music:
4.2.72
Dear Sunil,
You are certainly better qualified than me to give your opinion on Stockhausen's music. I am curious to know what you think about it.
For me, I have listened to this music, or this sound, rather, and I have felt the enormous mental effort to burst his mechanism — we feel easily, we see nearly all the parts of the mental clock which bursts and scatters through space.
But it is still the mental which plays as if all is destruction and enjoys itself never more than when it pretends to negate itself. He is too preoccupied with himself and too preoccupied to break his own limitations to really arrive at the unlimited — there is not at all some limitlessness in it. There is only limitation which would like to pull back till the end of space. And finally it is still the human ego which insulates itself, which blows itself up till it bursts its belly without ever being really able to explode, because the explosion does not happen through contortion, but through the forgetting and offering of oneself.
Stockhausen makes me think in terms of music of what the first cubists were doing in painting when they wanted to make the visual mental mechanism burst and succeeded only in putting aside pieces of torture and dismembered faces — a grimace was left. The sound of Stockhausen looks like a formidable spiritual grimace and we hear wandering around far away the steps of Frankenstein, rather than the cascade of divine laughter among 'the illuminated continent of violet peace, and a country without sorrow under the purple sun.'
Finally, it matters little from where the music of Stockhausen comes; what is important is that he thinks that it comes from Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo puts up very well with everybody impartially and he knows how to insert his humour everywhere — who knows, maybe he will finish by actually putting the Illimitable in Stockhausen's head if he is a bit sincere. As always, there is too much head and not enough heart.
Let me take this occasion to tell you that your music of the first of January was really sublime and divine — there, yes, one melts, one disappears in the illimitable. Thank you.
Sunil passes on Satprem's letter and his own response to a friend in France:
13.2.72
My dear Pierre,
I received your letter and the catalogue which you sent for me in care of Gilbert. I also received the tape on which you recorded the music "Illimite" by Stockhausen. I heard this music as soon as I received the tape, but I was waiting to have the comments of Satprem before writing to you — hence this delay, for which I hope you will excuse me. I am enclosing herewith the letter I received from Satprem and I add that I felt exactly the same sentiments when I heard this music for the first time.
Satprem has asked me to tell you that he does not want this letter to be made public. You can show it, if you want, to your very close friends, but in any case it should not reach the hands of persons who are likely to bring this letter or the contents of this letter to the notice of Stockhausen. He should not be hurt unnecessarily. The important thing is that Stockhausen thinks of Sri Aurobindo and respects him, and we should not do anything to interfere with whatever is going on within him at the moment.
Sending you my affection, Sunil
On Satprem and the Inner Brotherhood
During the period of tension following the Mother's passing, Sunil writes to a friend on Satprem in 1976:
Satprem held that the "Bulletin" had served its purpose and he had the feeling that its publication could now be discontinued; the Trustees of the Ashram were not convinced and they felt it their duty to continue its publication. It was only a difference of opinion and naturally under the present circumstances, the Trustees' opinion prevailed. Some strong letters were exchanged, but, finally, all became quiet and I perceive now no ill-feelings anywhere.
Satprem, Counouma, Dyuman, Madanlal, Shyamsundar, Navajat, Mona, are all our brothers and they keep in their heart the same ideal, the same goal of our lives. Until and unless they start hewing at the branch on which they sit, their unique refuge, everything should be safe and sound. When I say "refuge" what I have in mind is the awareness of Her Will at work in and around our lives here, there and elsewhere. And I am certain that, under all circumstances, Her will shall prevail. Grief at Her loss does serve no useful purpose, but a yearning has its own magic, it can render into gold the ties that bind you to your beloved.
Do not worry about Satprem. He is our brother and he is a wise man. He chose the Divine, and, surely, the Divine will choose for him his path. Have faith in Her and trust that Her Will will know how to execute what She wants.
Later, Sunil returns to the theme:
Satprem had privileges which few amongst us had. His service to Her and to Sri Aurobindo's mission on the earth is real and exemplary. His is the face of a child free, happy and intense in communion with his mother. I have the greatest respect for him, and I am sure all of us are happy to have him here with us.
Regarding Satprem, it is hard to know what to say without being liable to be misunderstood in some way or other.
Rijuta wrote to Sunil when she heard his "Shakti" music:
30.11.65
I resisted writing for a moment, but am spilling over with a grateful gladness for this latest wealth of music you've given us — Sunil, I was horrified to learn that you had been reluctant to produce this last score… how can you dare to limit your composition when it is so important an agent in Mother's Work, present and future?!
For myself, I know that the effect of Her Force and its result has very often been multiplied many degrees because your music has opened me to a wide receptivity instead of a narrow slot, or else shot me off into intense aspiration when I was caught in a lifeless doldrum — not to mention the sheer joy in itself that surges up apart from sadhana-benefits and which returns again and again all during the year when I play this Magic stuff. The thrill is always there — always fresh and new and powerful!
With most fervent appreciation, Rijuta
Rijuta writes again about what she calls the "Maheshwari" music, referring to the 1965 Shakti dance drama:
2.4.67
Dear-to-us-Sunil,
A half-dozen times I've resisted the temptation to make this suggestion, but now I give in — Sunil, really it is a shame that Mother has not been able to listen to your 'Maheshwari' music — just because a few bits and pieces could be improved here and there is no reason to deprive Mother of enjoying this truly lovely composition! Can't you salvage it by incorporating it somewhere in Savitri? Sit down today and listen to it again and find a way to use it, letting Mother enjoy it!
Cheers — R
3 November 1967
Oh Sunil,
how good it is to participate in your fête today, not so much with Birthday Wishes but rather with an intense Invocation …. your progress is going to be reverberating so strongly in the rest of us! Bonne Fête, indeed!
-Rijuta
On the 1968 New Year Music:
28.12.67
O Sunil —
"(Red-letter day)"
if it's true that Response comes in direct proportion to the Call, then 1968 is surely a year of towering fulfilment! The poignancy of the yearning in this music has truly torn me into ribbons…
Rijuta
Rijuta writes on the 1987 New Year Music:
26.1.87
The 1987 New Year Music has come. How lucky you are, Sunil, to be able to bring into this scarred, ugly, aching planet this redemptive Action! You give us the means to savour now the Real, the True, the Beautiful.
In happiest appreciation, Rijuta
Sunil responds:
1987
Dear Rijuta,
A letter from you always takes me by surprise and it is, always, with a quivering in my heart I realize that you are no longer there in that corner near Golconde. Remembering your face brings me back the beautiful images of our Ashram days in the forties, fifties, sixties… as if like a presence they owed in our memory. The contours of those days in lines and colour have not faded nor have they lost their substance. Something was there which lived with us, grew in us, continues to remain and even appears to expand. I believe it is indelible because it was a design painted by Their hands. Around a Light your life has always moved. May this Light continue to sustain all that is pure and fair in you!
I have mailed to you two cassettes with Savitri Bk VI C2, BK VII C1 & 2. The rest of the cassettes will be mailed to you later on as soon as possible. Thank you for your solicitude which comes from an intimacy grown over the years. I am in fairly good health now. The work that She gave to me has become for me a cross to bear and carry on. I pray to Her to give me the strength to do that with a happy heart.
Sending my affectionate thoughts to you, Yours Sunil
Rijuta responds:
6.5.87
One line at the end of your letter — which I read before the music came — had me howling 'Oh No!' loudly enough to shake the beams of your studio and set me worrying about what the music would be. Needless worry. There are those passages in this BK 7 music that, as always, arouse in the listener those poignant yearnings that are simultaneously and magically provided with the Force that satisfies those longings before the notes fade. Since your music both stirs and fulfils us in this way, you, while composing must have yourself felt all this, so how in heaven's name, can you dare to write that this great opportunity 'She has given you has become a cross for you to bear!'… You must be referring to the recording process or other material difficulties — but do put things in perspective! The Divine's nightingale contributes her surpassingly lovely part, and I hope all eye problems and infection are past history.
I'm convinced that each one who maintains the inner contact with Mother is given the place and conditions that best foster self-giving.
With love, Rijuta
24.3.88
Dear Sunil and Patrick,
Your cassette has come, Patrick, and I happily count on your kind offer to send me all future music. You take for granted 'future creations', Patrick, but for me, there is a sense of wonder every time a new composition emerges — Sunil, how do you manage to keep on distilling these heavenly strains that continuously work on the development of our being!?
Yet my delight and applause is only for side two. Side one I found to be a thicket of sound effects — sound effects uncannily suggestive of the harrowing scenes of the poem, but to get at the few nuggets of real music on that side, the prolonged punishment of the sound effects don't warrant repeated listening. I will stick to side two only.
The Mother's lavish Grace in providing for all, all one's needs here on every level — especially the need to grow — has to be lived to be believed.
With a happy heart, and wishing you the same, Rijuta
After the Mother's Passing
To Rijuta, who has moved back to the United States:
Only when a letter comes from you I feel with a little quivering in my heart that you are no longer living in that corner near Golconde. Remembering your face brings me back the beautiful images of our Ashram days in the forties, the fifties, the sixties, a magic presence that now dwells in our memory. The contours of those days in lines and colours have not faded nor have they lost their substance. Something lived with us and in us continues to live and grow. It was a design painted by Their hands. Around a Light your life has moved through expanding years. May you remain always turned towards Their Luminescence, may you receive all that is fair and beautiful.
Yours Sunil
Gambelon — Sunil's long-time friend and indispensable benefactor — wrote about Sunil's music with uncommon spiritual discernment. Their correspondence spans decades and touches on art, inner life, and the nature of spiritual work.
On Music, Emotion, and the Divine
Sunil writes to Gambelon, astonished that someone could say his Savitri music lacked emotion:
At last a quiet is settling down around me — a grey comforting shadow but — within me the stillness is yet to come. The insane relish of work is gone, the allegretto agitato of strings have died down but I can however hear muffled base chords resounding like heavy footfalls of strangers along the corridors of my mind. Yet deep within me there is a still pool which sends back the image of a light that is burning somewhere.
You knew my dear friend that my Savitri was a failure as far as public appreciation was concerned, compliments were few and far between and even then … above me. A gentleman came to congratulate me on my Savitri — He said what he liked in my music is the total absence of emotion. Oh God! What a compliment! Is that how the people feel about my music? If these musics fail to stir their senses, do not move something within them, and bring even an infinitesimal fraction of what I felt when I wrote them? Emotion if it grows to the Divine, does it look like intellect and abstraction? Yet there are men who search God and Light and they do not know Love when they see it or, in other words, do you realize the Divine without love? What I fail to understand is that my Savitri when it is most inspired is also the most emotional of my musics I have ever written. "Mortality bears ill the Eternal's Truth."
So I ponder lying on my armchair and reviewing in endless procession the events of my recent past. At any rate now I am fair and fresh — waiting and counting my days before the bell for that next bout of composition rings.
Gambelon on the wider significance of Sunil's work:
Le Mans, 10.9.71
Our time is one of humanity's spiritual synthesis. Religions, orthodoxies, dogmas, exclusiveness and prohibition are as many obstacles to human unity and spiritual harmony. Your modest work goes in the direction of this universal spirituality — beyond religions; you may not be aware of it, but it does not matter, it is a fact.
Sincerely, Gambelon
PS - Those who aspire to the Divine can come closer to themselves in your music of aspiration.
Le Mans, 16 November 1971
For the music of your recording I have been very surprised. First it is from a more beautiful inspiration than ever, rich with completely new sounds with so many things that I will have to listen to it several times to assimilate. The recording and the technical realization are the best that you have ever done; very good sound quality, voices, linings, superimpositions etc.
I am happy that Mother approved, but how could she not? It is a music from a world of light and truth.
Your two meetings with Mother are very interesting as always. I am sure that this music answers better even what she wants spiritually than her own music. I don't know if one can say that this music is the work of a genius, I think we should say that it is the work of a medium from the supramental world.
What we have called geniuses were often people who had a higher inspiration than the average consciousness, but it was not coming from the supramental plane, but from the actual consciousness. Anyway, don't have either an inferiority complex or a superiority complex. For you, you must stay and move always more in the intimacy of divine and luminous things that the Divine has allowed you for the good of everybody.
Gambelon
On Their Different Natures
May 1971
I am very interested by the end of your letter from the 6.5, because the problems of the vital transformation and consequently of the life interest me more than anything. Your way to approach things is full of common sense and simplicity. I like it a lot. You are more conscious than I thought. No doubt things do not present themselves in you so acutely as in me, and you have surely a routine of inner life calmer and surely happier.
There was in my nature a tendency towards an absolute in all. I have known anguishes, distresses, extremes, shadows, but also extraordinary moments of joy, even beatitude, divine love. It seems that one has to touch the bottom of human abysses to know the divine ecstasies. You say that everything presented and arranged itself as if by chance.
It's all the contrary for me. I was waiting for Sri Aurobindo's knowledge since the age of 10, 11 years old and when I did meet him, after reaching 20 years, I knew with certitude that there was all I was waiting for, all that I needed. And on the level of knowledge Sri Aurobindo has fulfilled me and has not brought the least disappointment. But the knowledge is one thing and the transformation of the vital nature another.
Sincerely yours, Gambelon
Near the end of his life, Gambelon writes his most concentrated appreciation:
17.3.95
Concerning your music, I was telling you that it was magnificent — music of the soul for the soul — music of psychisation — a prolongation of the action of the Mother down here — a sonorous darshan.
Clifford Gibson corresponded with Sunil over more than two decades.
The path of Sadhana
Sunil writes to a friend in the U.S. who he feels is taking an unnecessarily pessimistic view of what it means to do yoga:
March 27, 1972
My dear Cliff,
From your letter what I could gather is that all was empty within you except the lone difficulty. This is all wrong. Yoga is not simply the mastery of one’s self, a life of rigid self-discipline and a continuous fight against one’s weaknesses. Yoga is a new enlightenment, a new life in the Divine. There is a help within your reach, you should call for it; there is a power around you, be open to it and turn it into your own strength. It is only in happy harmonious happiness that you can grow richer every day. For a change, I would advise you not to accord too much importance to your difficulties, to look beyond these bodiless walls and call for joy from diviner heights. Consider yourself as the Mother’s spoilt child and aspire for Her sweetness, Her delight, and Her love.
It has always been a pleasure to receive letters from you, and I assure you that it will be my privilege to be of any service to you in future.
Sending you my warm regards, Yours, Sunil Bhattacharya
Again on taking a more positive approach to life and yoga:
May 20, 1972
I received your letter a few days ago, but I am sorry that I could not manage to send you a reply earlier than this. I am very happy to receive the coloured photograph that you have sent with your letter. But it was not very much of a surprise to me as your face seemed to fit very neatly into the image that I had formed of you in my mind. I am glad to see Lucille. Please say hello to her and tell her something nice on my behalf. Does she know me? Quite obviously, I have no comments to make on your relationship with her. Friendship and comradeship are all permissible in yoga if they remain subordinate to one absorbing passion, namely the realization of the Divine.
Each one of us has erred in someway or other. The essence of living in happiness is to look forward and forget the past, and to grow within into the beautiful and felicitous Presence of the Mother, which alone can give a purpose and meaning to our life. Try not to bear your own cross, leave it to Her to do the needful. Here are a few lines from the Rig Veda which I had used in my “New Year Music — 1970.” You may like it. “State upon state is born, covering upon covering has become conscious and aware, in the lap of the mother he sees. Awaking to an entire knowledge they have called and guard a sleepless strength, they have entered the strong fortified city.”
Sending my love to you, Yours, Sunil
In the next letter Sunil disavows any claim to superior status as a yogi and suggests looking to the one source of help available to all:
10.10.72
I am not sure of my ability to offer you any advices. It appears from your letter that you have an illusion of seeing a yogi of an advanced sort in me who could solve your problems with bursts of illuminations. No, Sir, I am very sorry to disillusion you, but this should be in the records that I have never aspired to any such powers. We are all in the same boat and we have, all of us, the same privilege to look up to something which would make our lives more meaningful. Maybe I am a little more experienced than you are because I am older; that’s all.
One thing I have realized in my 30 years of stay here in this Ashram is that mental answers to the questions in our minds are not very relevant to our life of spiritual progress. If you have a really important question, put it to your inner self or to the image of whatever you conceive as your Divine. The answer will be given to you in the proper time, in a very, very intelligible form, and help, too, if you are in need of it. Without the intervention of this Grace our sadhana cannot make a step forward. Words which can help you must be spoken to your innermost being. Peace is not just a state of mind, it is a force, an emanation from the Divine. We can have it if we call for it and are open to receive it. I write my musics when I compose them, though we do not follow them very strictly while recording. I am glad that you play on the recorder. Creativity is a great help under any circumstances. In sadhana, it is always encouraged here by the Mother.
I sincerely hope that you receive the guidance you are looking for from within you.
Sending you my love and warm regards, Yours, Sunil
The Birthday Without Her
Pondicherry — 3.11.73
It is so nice of you to have sent so many things for me; the card is beautiful, your music cassette has some wonderful musics in it and your good wishes and your appreciation of my music is, to say the least, heartening. For us, here, the birthday was always a very special day, the day when She used to come close to us as a physical mother comes to her child. On this day you were very special to Her, you were not in a crowd trying to get Her touch or Her Darshan, She gave Herself exclusively to you and you were happy to find how much your welfare meant to Her.
So, this year there will be an emptiness around me on my birthday at least physically. But Her Presence is there always within me and there She is exclusively mine.
Sending you my love. Sunil
Turning Westward
3. 6. 83
Even though I seldom write to you, you are very often in my thoughts. With you, I have felt a close kinship that does not disappear with time. There should be a meaning in whatever we do. But, it is difficult to read it. I am now sixty-three, and I have turned westwards. When I look back on the long trail behind me, these are the little things, trivial moments that stand out.
Cliff wrote to ask what he meant. Sunil replies:
22. 7. 83
When I used the word "westward" I did not mean that I have any intention to move out of Pondicherry. I used the word in a figurative way. I am, now, an old man of sixty-three, and my life is definitely tilting towards the inevitable horizon. However, inside me, I am still young. I feel myself more at home with young people. Even if the zest of my boyhood days, the gladness of my youth are receding, I do not feel empty of joy or of happiness. I admire young people like you who face with courage the harshnesses of our human life, and, yet are looking for some other values which they cherish in their heart.
A Memory Seen From Far
6. 1. 84
The memory of those few days, when you were here, has become distant and dim with time. I have a vague remembrance of a conversation that we did have in my room, but the substance of it has slipped off my mind. What I remember, still, is your face with two shining eyes, the candour with which you spoke to me about yourself, and the courage with which you wanted to cherish your lonely freedom.
However, what I spoke to you is not so important, as I have perceived that I very rarely succeed in expressing precisely what I want to convey. What is more important is the impression that these words create in the listener, the residual effect that lives; what I gather from your letter is what you understood and that remains, more or less, my view of things even though ten long years have passed with ten long, hot and very hot summers of Pondy.
Affection Across Distance
5. 11. 85
Dear Cliff,
Something within you has deepened, widened and yet you have remained the same. My affection for you is not something which formed with time. I knew of it since the moment I saw you. I don't know, even, from where it came. Your affection for me is something I value as a priceless gift. It is nice to look back upon these few days that you were with us here. We will meet each other again soon.
I have finished this year's Savitri on the 30th of October.
Morning Gladness
June 7, 1994
On the 5th of June, evening, I finished the new Savitri. It will take a few days' time to start recording it on to cassettes. I will send you one, of course.
Today is the 7th and I have at last found myself playing on my organ truly as I like. I enjoy playing when there are no obligations, no pressure to do something.
Even on such hot days when I wake up in the morning I feel a strange gladness in my heart. Perhaps when you are old the morning always bring tidings that bring joy to your heart.
I send to you and Akiko my love, and Chhobi, too.
Affectionately yours, Sunil
Agnes wrote to Sunil from France with philosophical questions about suffering, falsehood, and the pain of the world. Sunil's reply is direct, demanding, and unexpectedly revelatory of his own inner landscape.
Pondicherry — 18 February 1974
Dear Agnes,
For obvious reasons my answer to your letter should be in English, and I am sure it will be no problem for you to make sense of what I want to communicate. I do not intend to throw any light on the questions raised by you — this is not within my competence. If I tried I could, at the most, dissect your questions, analyze them, and try to trace their roots which reach far into the deepest folds of our human nature. For me it would be a disagreeable experience.
You don't have to tell me that there is falsehood, and ignorance, and pain and suffering, and hate and violence in this world, not only in Chile, and Vietnam and Pakistan, but everywhere in more or less disguised form. It has happened and could happen here in Pondy again — and why not even in my own room! The seeds of obscurity and evil are being scattered into the winds at every moment. What can you expect from a world where you would rather make everything your own, and leave nothing free? This little "I" within me, within you, and equally within others, likes best when it can feed on others' pain and it has no bounds to its ambition, it wants to swallow the whole world. But, then, is it that you want to say that because there is pain, and suffering, and perversion and darkness, there cannot be any bliss, any delight, any luminosity in the world?
I wonder — at least, it is not for me to wallow in my mud — from my childhood I knew what I really was and yet always I tried to reach for what I could become. I have always felt the One whom I call Divine very close to me. He had come to me in my dreams both waking and in my sleep. He is my friend and my love and I have unshakable trust in Him. He is much more real to me than you are (I do not even remember your face, have only your letter). However, I am miles away from the experience of the One as Absolute or Infinite. If I had, the contraries that you have cited in your letter would cease to be contraries any more to me. They would just be the faces of the same and the unique Reality.
Long ago, when I was just a young boy I was on the verge of an experience of an infinite calm and it is curious that just when it mattered most I felt within me an unreasonable fear of self-destruction. I did neither like the experience nor the fear. This helped me discover my limitations. Infinite existence is not my meat, perhaps it is yours, who can say!
The questions you have raised are vital and have been discussed by Sri Aurobindo in his various works; if I were a reading type, I could give you the names of the books and the pages. As it is, I only vaguely remember that I have read them discussed in some works of his. If you are really interested, please take the trouble to go through his works. With care, I am sure you will be amply repaid in one form or another.
As you have realized by now that my path does not exactly cross yours, I can be of very little service to you in your difficulties. We speak different languages.
Hoping that this letter will find you in excellent health and happiness, Yours, Sunil Bhattacharya
Sunil responds to a note from revered Ashramite Nolini, who had addressed him as "the Mother's musician":
Nolini-da,
You have done proper to write "the Mother's musician."
I really needed to hear this. As the days are passing, both my enthusiasm and interest are diminishing.
Last life I did some good work and therefore became capable of receiving love from elders like you. This will give a lot of joy to this worthless person.
Yours, Sunil
Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Then there was a key piece where he had to compose the music for Temptations of Buddha, Buddha who goes into meditation. And the Maras, the hostile forces that come to, you know, to allure him, in that piece Sunilda composed some music which is quite other than the usual rhythmic Indian music.
And Sunilda told me that, 'This is how Mother slowly showed me the path of the music.' And he once told me that composing this music for the dances, he was slowly getting disgusted. The same type of music, you know, a sort of inner revolt. 'No more of this music.'
Sunil had had a very good grounding in Indian classical music. In fact his family had a background in Indian music. His elder brother, Jhumur's father Anil, used to play on the sarod. And Sunilda was a very good sitarist, an excellent sitarist. He gave up the sitar because, unfortunately, after just a few years, he had an accident where he broke his wrist and he could no longer play it. And he used to play such a wonderful sitar. From there he switched to playing the harmonium. And then he went on to the organ.
Mother says that Sunil is open to the world of true music. From the very source from where Mother used to get the inspiration, get the music. Sunil had the access.
You see, once I had a very touching experience. You know Mother had hummed Mahalakshmi's theme and she had given Sunil to compose the music. For two years he tried something or other. And then he realized that nothing can go. And so one day I just got into that music room and I saw that Sunil was all alone in front of the organ listening to the Mother's voice. And there Sunil was just sitting in a meditative mood and if I'm not mistaken I saw tears slowly trickling down… And quietly I removed myself. I could see that it was a depth of spiritual experience through music.
From that day he knew that Mother is looking after him and he stopped completely the whole idea of selling the music in order to be able to buy tapes and other things. And he never… although there were many people, temptations …. 'These will sell in Europe, America,' and you know he could earn money for Mother, and all that. But Sunil was absolutely firm on that: No commercial.
He was composing music for dance, because that was Mother's wish. Every year we used to have a yearly program. And how many dances… the music is all lost because we didn't have any space to do it. What did we have? That harmonium I used to play. Sunil used to play. And my big brother. Then suddenly he would have some idea and he would run downstairs and he would snatch a pot from my mother's kitchen and my mother would be shouting, 'What are you doing?' and he said, 'I'm taking it.' And then a piece of wood. He would come and ask Manoj, 'Go and bang it like that from that distance.' Through the mike it sounded so different. All these ideas.
Sunilda told me an interesting experience. He said he was thinking of this music and one day he was taking his bath and after the bath, as he was coming out right on the doorstep the whole thing came down. And as an answer from the earth, an aspiration of the light. He said, 'I could not move, I was stuck there.'
Beyond the corridor we met Manoj who wished him happy birthday. Most affectionately Sunil-da caressed his face and jovially remarked, "Oh! Here is our trustee… the boy is intelligent!"
Former student of Sunil's at the Ashram school
At school, he used to tell us a story of how once he won the intercollegiate chess championship. He said that he was there playing chess, it was the finals, and he suddenly saw that his position was not very strong, but he also remembered that the position was very close to one ending that he had read about in the papers. So then he applied the knowledge of what he had seen in that and he kept on sacrificing pieces. And all his supporters there were getting more and more nervous and saying 'what is he doing?' He sacrificed his rook, his knight and everything. His opponent was very glad he was falling to pieces. Finally with only one rook, even the queen, he sacrificed his queen also. But finally with just one rook and one small pawn, he checkmated the fellow and he won the competition. Whatever he did he always did well.
Everything he took up, you know, he excelled at it. He was the captain of the football team in the Ashram. He was a great dasher. He used to play center forward for the Ashram. Mother used to encourage us sometimes to go out and play with the outside teams and she never wanted us to lose. And once they went to Cuddalore and the Ashram boys won the match one nil. One nil is a pretty good score, it's not bad. So, Mother, when she heard they had won by one said, 'That's all? You only won by one goal?' So then, laughingly he told her that was a pretty good match and that we had beaten the other team quite convincingly.
He used to go into the house there, I used to see him. And really it was fascinating to see him, to watch him practise his music. One day while having dinner together he was saying that now he had entered a phase where he was very much interested in harmonies and chords and he said, 'That's what I'm interested in now,' and his face lighted up like that.
Sunil's long-time recording technician and close companion
Human type of difficulties he took very well in his stride. I mean, rarely he spoke… when things were not working out he would just shut and then go. And then the next day he'd start fresh again. And you never had this sense of time is running out, never. I mean with him it was so easy. He used to go through time as if there was a lot of time still and yet he finished everything perfectly in the right place.
That is, mainly Savitri, I would say. He finished Book ten, canto four and then he fell ill and here, you see, I think people, like… they don't work. He was bedridden at the most four months or six months, like that and then he left. It's not that he became an old man and all that. He was always young until he couldn't work. His limbs were not working, his hands were not working. Everything, there was difficulty. You could see he was playing with great difficulty, but he never expressed that. Never. But somewhere I felt, also, that he was having problems. We used to help him up to his room upstairs. So the routine had set in.
Victor Jauhar accompanied Sunil on his last birthday visit to Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's rooms, and wrote a moving account:
Monday, the 3rd of November 1997
The body was failing him; but his usual peaceful expression and quiet will to ever move forward, throughout veiled with a psychic glow the gravity of his physical condition. As in the previous years, he was specially invited to visit Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's room (around 9:00 a.m.), and I was fortunate to accompany him. I drove him by car to the rear gate of the Ashram that was specially opened for him. With my help he laboured up the stairs; Nirod-da and Kumud were both waiting for him. Emotional, loving and still gasping to get back his breath, he caressed Nirod-da's face with both his hands and exclaimed, "You are my one and only elder brother!" Nirod-da was probably taken somewhat by surprise but seemed moved.
Then on we proceeded, and Nirod-da opened the door to Sri Aurobindo's room.
With reverence and hands clasped he stood facing Sri Aurobindo's majestic couch, while I firmly held his arm with both hands. At times I heard him whimpering softly, but he gathered himself. Then just before leaving, in spite of his painful, injured back, with great will and effort he bowed down and touched his forehead to the ground.
The steep stairs up to Mother's room were a greater ordeal; it was an obvious strain on his heart but he had to make it, and he did. He stepped into Her room with deep and laboured breathing, and Kumud immediately pulled up a stool for him. He was tired and gladly accepted to sit.
Then he looked around for a few moments and finally broke down in tears. It pained my heart to see him thus, for never had I seen him broken before nor remotely ever disturbed.
While I gently caressed his back, Nirod-da asked him what happened. Looking towards the Mother's reclining bed he said, "So many things, I remember." Kumud showed her concern and asked him which flower he would like to have, and then herself suggested: "Sunil-da, here is Divine Love, take Divine Love." With a brushing movement of his hand he said, "No, no, I don't need all that! I neither want Divine Love nor do I want any love; I have seen much of love."
Then he looked at the tray of flowers and himself picked up Divine Grace.
On returning downstairs, the door facing the Samadhi was flung wide open for him and he had a last longing look at the Samadhi. Nirod-da went and brought him a flower. Back home he was loving, yet brief with his well-wishers waiting for him, then went right up to compose. He placed the Divine Grace flower on the organ, sank into his chair, and thanked me; …and I took his leave.
That day, I was left with the feeling that it had been his last pilgrimage, and somewhere he probably knew that.
Dated: 2nd of July 1998 Victor Jauhar
Minnie was Sunil's elder sister, who sang in his recordings and witnessed his creative life from within the household.
It was not always very, very loud. Sometimes suddenly it would, it was like a symphony, it would just burst open.
You see, it was a daily affair. We didn't always have time to sit and listen to the music all the time. … It was fantastic. We didn't realize…
For quite some time every month Sunil used to have to compose fifteen minutes, not longer than that and we used to all go there in the playground and Mother would come in and we had to play.
He was composing music for dance, because that was Mother's wish. Every year we used to have a yearly program. And how many dances… the music is all lost because we didn't have any space to do it. What did we have? That harmonium I used to play. Sunil used to play. And my big brother. Then suddenly he would have some idea and he would run downstairs and he would snatch a pot from my mother's kitchen and my mother would be shouting, 'What are you doing?' and he said, 'I'm taking it.'
Dancer and choreographer for the Ashram programs
My first musical contact with Sunilda was in 1954. The Mother had asked me to present a short dance for the 1st of December, the school Anniversary program, on two themes: Devotion and Aspiration. She told me that She would ask Sunilda to compose Music for my dance. The first part — Devotion — was composed in the traditional Indian style. The second part — Aspiration — was very special. It was a totally new composition, a new type of music which I had never heard before. It has long penetrating notes played by Kanakda on the electric guitar. It sort of completely hypnotized me. I was then only 20. Never had I experienced this balmy effect of music on my body. It was just magnificent!
On the rehearsal day the music began. I started dancing before the Mother. Somewhere, in the middle of the Aspiration music, I experienced a special feeling which I cannot forget. As Sunilda's music went higher and higher my body too like a feather soared in the air. The stage wings, the roof of the stage — everything disappeared. I was floating like a feather with the music.
The dance was over. The Mother told me whatever She had to say about my dance, then, with a brisk movement She caught my right hand and started walking straight towards Sunilda who was standing on the other end of the stage. The Mother stood in front of Sunilda and gave him a very significant look. Then She asked, 'Where have you got this music from?' Sunilda did not answer. He looked at the Mother silently.
I have a strong feeling that this Aspiration music was Sunilda's first entry to the world of what Mother calls 'the Music of the New Age'.
Sunil's recording technician from later years
He used a lot of alternate instrument creativity in the 60s. He used tea cups filled with different amounts of water for xylophone or chimes-like sounds. There was the piano that they had removed the back of and used as a harp. He also did pitch-shifting with the tape deck. They recorded at half-speed and then played it back at double speed or vice versa, so the sound was shifted up or down by an octave. The effect was not the same as if they had just played at a higher octave. Also the guitar was used in an original way as a violin. That remained a basic element of the music throughout.
He had no problem playing the music over and over again with Kanak, and Klosterman too, until they learned it. He didn't like to record multiple takes, but didn't mind playing quite a few times with them and I think he made changes as he played. But whenever singers came, or actually anyone that wasn't part of his regular group, he would not want to either rehearse much or take more than one or two takes. One of the reasons was he thought the 'feeling' would go and it would become mechanical.
As I heard it, it happened in the room that later became the studio. He actually passed out and maybe was out for a while, and he wrote to the Mother about it and she told him that this is what had happened, i.e. something had come down. He used to lock himself in the room so that nobody would disturb him from the front door, but one of the side doors was always open a crack just because of that… he or Chhobi feared that he'd be in there passed out and nobody would be able to get in.
German dancer and choreographer, University of Bahia, Brazil
"In 1968 I visited for the first time the Sri Aurobindo Ashram to present there a recital of creative dancing. It so happened that during a rehearsal at the theatre a member of the Ashram community came in and brought a tape with 'The Mother's Music' asking me to dance it during the show. The music was not familiar to me and at first, it sounded strange to me, but I did as requested and opening myself and giving myself to it, I performed it on that same night. Later on I learned that 'The Mother's Music' was the music composed by an Indian, who was a resident of the Ashram — Sunil. And, a significant coincidence, I was asked by the Mother to listen together with her to new compositions of Sunil on the following morning (Music for the poem Savitri from Sri Aurobindo) and it was there, in the Mother's room, that Sunil and I met for the first time."
Chhobi — Sunil's sister — would make a final entry in the truncated autobiography she had been helping him write:
Sunil, the unique Divine composer cum musician 'sacrificed' his body on Thursday the 30th April 1998 at 1 p.m.
Sunil's family says he was fond of these lines of Rabindranath Tagore:
On the day of my departure May I not fail to utter These my words of gratitude: All I've seen, All I've received, Are beyond compare!
"Sunil - THe Mother's Musician" - by Nirodbaran
'Sunil-Da' - by Batti
'Sunil-da' by Jhumur Bhattacharya
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