S. Mohinder

Who is S. Mohinder?

Mohinder Singh Sarna was born in a small town called Sillanwali in 1925. At the time the city was located in the Montgomery District of Punjab. Mohinder’s father Sujan Singh Bakhshi was a sub-inspector in the police forces.

His father was transferred and the family moved to a comparatively larger city Lyallpur, British India now Faisalabad, in Pakistan, where young Mohinder in the 1930s started an apprenticeship with an accomplished Sikh religious vocalist Sant Sujan Singh.

He honed his skills for several years in accordance with classical music in the tutelage of Sant Sujan Singh. Initially he strived to be a singer. Later his family moved to Sheikhupura, close to Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of the founder of Sikhism.

He later received his further training in classical music from Sikh religious musician Bhai Samund Singh. Frequent transfers of his father kept the family on the move. Since Mohinder’s education suffered, his father enrolled him in Khalsa High School during the 1940s in the village Kairon in Amritsar.

In 1947, the rest of his family moved to East Punjab in India. The love for classical music brought S. Mohinder to Benares, the Mecca of Indian Classical Music. After some years of grooming S. Mohinder, moved to Bombay, the centre of the film industry. His first successful film was Nili, which was musical hit but a film disaster.