GML Freelance Contributor
For more than six decades, Dr Surujrattan Rambachan has used his voice to carry Hindu devotion from village temples to packed satsangs, radio and television audiences – and into charitable causes across Trinidad and Tobago.
Today, at 77 and battling stage-four cancer, Rambachan is looking back on a remarkable spiritual journey that began with two five-pound ghee tins tied together as a makeshift drum, and a mysterious dream of Lord Krishna that he has never been able to fully explain.
Yet even as he confronts his own mortality, Rambachan continues to sing.
On September 20, his voice is expected to once again fill the Chinmaya Ashram at Mc Bean, Couva, where devotees, friends, family and supporters will gather for a special Bhajan Mala or rendition of 108 devotional songs or bhajans. This event is championed by Swami Prakashananda and several organisations and individuals.
The free event will run from 8 am to 5 pm and will celebrate Rambachan’s lifetime of bhakti—devotion—and seva, or selfless service.
Rambachan is expected to perform 24 devotional songs, singing during the first and final hours of the day-long programme.
For a man whose life has been so deeply intertwined with devotional music, the occasion promises to be more than a musical tribute. It will be a celebration of a life in which singing became a means of worship, fellowship and service.
A dream that changed everything
Rambachan did not begin his public singing career until he was about 17.
But the seeds had been planted much earlier.
As a child, he was fascinated by the annual Ganesh Ustav Festival at the Avocat Hindi Temple, now known as Siddhi Vinayaka Mandir.
Then, in 1965, came an experience that would remain etched in his memory for more than 60 years.
Rambachan said he dreamt that he was sitting in the front yard of his grandfather, Pundit Goberdhan’s, home on Siparia Old Road.
In the dream, he saw the chariot of Lord Krishna, with Krishna himself seated inside.
“The colours were extraordinary,” he recalled.
When he awoke, he could not explain what he had experienced.
“But after that, something shifted, and I began to sing,” he said.
His brother Anant became his first musical partner.
The two had no proper musical instruments, so they improvised, tying two five-pound ghee tins together with red cloth and using them as a makeshift drum.
Their uncle, Roopnarine Rambachan, eventually bought them drums, while their grandfather travelled to San Fernando and purchased a harmonium.
It was the beginning of something much bigger.
From a village temple to radio and television
In April 1966, Rambachan’s parents, Chandrawtee and Deoraj, together with several elders, including Pundit Agyaram, founded the Saraswati Kirtan Mandali at the Avocat Temple.
The group continued operating there until 1988.
Rambachan played harmonium, while his brother Anant played the dholak. Another brother, Brahmanand, eventually became a pundit.
“It was more than a musical group,” Rambachan said. “It became a vehicle through which devotion moved from village to village.”
The Mandali eventually reached audiences beyond Avocat, appearing on radio and television.
In 1970, the group was recorded by Balroop Mungal upstairs at the Scarlet Ibis Hotel.
Those early experiences helped lay the foundation for what would become Rambachan’s lifelong commitment to devotional music.
He describes the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as an extraordinary period of Hindu awakening in Trinidad and Tobago.
Organisations such as the Hindu Seva Sangh and Divine Life Society helped expand Hindu religious education and devotional practice, while scholars brought Hindu philosophy into wider public and academic spaces.
Rambachan said both approaches were important.
“The satsangs were our Bhakti movement. The lecture series were our Gyaan movement,” he said. “I was lucky enough to take part in both.”
The Sai movement and a new wave of bhajan singing
When the teachings of Sri Sathya Sai Baba reached Trinidad in the 1970s, Rambachan said bhajan singing experienced another major upsurge.
In 1974, he became deeply involved, travelling throughout the country, conducting satsangs and helping to encourage the formation of new Sai kirtan groups.
He never became a formal office-bearer in the movement.
Instead, he chose to remain independent, moving among different Hindu communities while concentrating on what he regarded as the central principles of Dharma and Seva.
Then came 1986 – and an idea that would change the course of his devotional life.
Nine hours of singing
Rambachan was conducting a seven-night Ramayana Yagna in Felicity.
The response, he recalled, was overwhelming.
“More than 1,000 people attended each night, with the final night attracting more than 2,000.”
Amid the crowds and the devotional atmosphere, a thought came to him:
“Why not sing 108 bhajans continuously?”
There was no elaborate plan.
The idea simply came – and refused to leave.
The first 108 Bhajan Mala was held at the Sai Centre in Marabella.
Rambachan sang for nine hours and 15 minutes.
He would eventually complete the marathon devotional offering six more times – seven in total.
But for Rambachan, the significance was never simply about the physical endurance required to sing for nine hours.
It was about what happened when devotion became service.
One 108 Bhajan Mala, titled Ahuti, was held at the Carpet House in Chaguanas in 2001. The Gayatri Mantra was chanted, and offerings were made into a sacred fire after each bhajan.
Another event, held for the Rotary Club at the Munroe Road Temple, raised $77,000 for children requiring medical care.
A session at the Divine Life Society in Carlsen Field, hosted by Pundit Ramdath Vyas, raised $110,000, making a major contribution towards the construction of the Vyas complex and Devi Mandir on Caroni Savannah Road.
“The figures matter, but they’re not the heart of it,” Rambachan said.
“What mattered was when people discovered that devotion could become practical service—that a bhajan could be medicine for a child, that nine hours of singing could become a building, that a voice could be genuinely given away. That is Seva.”
Beyond the harmonium
Rambachan’s life outside devotional music has been just as varied.
He has been a university lecturer, management consultant, politician, Mayor of Chaguanas, government minister and High Commissioner.
But when he sat behind the harmonium, those titles disappeared.
He was simply a singer.
He believes that was important because it demonstrated that modern education, professional life and Hindu devotion could coexist.
But the 108 Bhajan Mala demanded something no title could provide: endurance, discipline and surrender.
“Somewhere past the fifth or sixth hour, something shifts,” he said. “The singer stops counting. The body is tired. The voice becomes less an instrument of performance and more simply an instrument.”
“The mind quiets. The singing becomes prayer.”
A family journey
Rambachan said his spiritual journey has also been a shared one with his wife, Nandini, and their children, Adi and Ranjana.
As the 20th century drew to a close, he became increasingly concerned about the decline of Hindi as a spoken language among younger generations.
Rather than viewing the changing language landscape as a threat, he saw an opportunity.
Rambachan embraced English bhajans as a way of making Hindu teachings accessible to a new generation.
He recorded devotional songs in English in Trinidad and India, including the Hanuman Chalisa.
“The devotional songs in English go back to the 1970s, when my brother, Professor of Religion Anantanand Rambachan wrote these songs for classes he conducted for children in several locations in Trinidad.” His philosophy is simple “If language changes, let Dharma remain understandable.”
And now, as cancer tests his body, that philosophy appears to have taken on an even deeper meaning.
The voice that began with improvised ghee-tin drums more than six decades ago has become, for Rambachan, an instrument of devotion, service and legacy.
On September 20, that voice is expected to rise again at Chinmaya Ashram.
This time, however, the singing will be in his honour.
Rambachan has written ten books on Ramayan Discourses and donated 1,000 copies of his book entitled 106 Management Truths to the Rotary Club of Penal, where the books were sold to raise funds for needy children.
