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Meeting Deva - An interview with Miten |
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by Penny |
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Pune, India 14th. December 1999. Penny from UK interviews Miten. This interview, between Miten and I, took place in a beautiful room by the river in Koregaon Park. Miten was having tea overlooking a view of tree tops and a secluded garden running down to and framing the river. When I arrived we ate papaya and moved to the floor to begin...it's 10:30 am. |
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| P: |
Miten, where did you and Deva meet? Did you realize at the time, could you have had an inkling, of what a great musical team you'd turn out to be? |
| M: |
No, no idea. I had no idea, no inkling, not at all. It was, let me think back...definitely there's a real amazing connection with me and Deva. I never had it before. I haven't had it with many people in my life, so I know it's something stronger than what's gone before somehow. Maybe with one or two musicians, maybe with one or two friends, but basically it's the most amazing connection I've ever had in my life, I'm not talking about Osho, but with another human being. |
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The first time...shall I tell you everything? OK. The first time I remember Deva was when we had this band 'Ah This' in the ashram, and they were taking this photo for the Osho Times and somebody said, 'We need a blonde woman in this photo.' 'Ah This' was a sort of caravanserai. It was the dream of a guy named Swagato... he asked all his favorite musicians and performers to go on a world tour with him, taking the World of Osho to the world! Anyway, whenever he had a date with someone, next day she would be on the tour! It was like, oh, we've got a masseur for the tour, or another day it would be we've got a cook, another day it would be a new road manager, and all these amazing women became part of the thing!! It was a kind of joke--actually Swagato was an amazing guy--totally inspired back then, totally committed to his dream. Anyway, there wasn't a blonde woman in the group. So I said, I'll just go in the ashram and find one.' And I saw Deva and I said, 'D'you wanna be in a photo?' |
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| P: |
She was the first one you saw? You didn't know her????????!!! |
| M: |
No, and she said yeah, ok. So I took her there. This was 10 or 12 years ago, must be, because I've known her 9 years. And I've still got this photo, or she has, and there's Deva right next to me in this band and neither of us knowing each other, amazing huh? |
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| P: |
Incredible! So it took three years for you to come together after that? |
| M: |
Yes, another funny story is that on the 'Ah This' tour, she--I don't remember this because a lot of girls used to ask me, 'Can I sing with you?' you know--but she actually asked me, you know, can you try me out kind of thing. At that time I always had a stock answer for girls who asked me that, I didn't want to hurt them 'cos most of them couldn't sing at all! But she remembers my answer, which was, 'Are you good?' Only good singers have the confidence to say yes to that question. Of course she couldn't say that because at the time she wasn't a singer at all. |
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 Then a few years later after I'd gone through the break up with Asho (Miten's biggest ex, that I know of) and dealing with all that pain and addiction to another human being -- Deva just came back into my life. She came one day to Mariams (the ashram canteen). She was doing the Divine Healing Training and they were looking for models. She asked me would I like to have this session. So I was in this session with her one morning and it was just amazing! We were both crying just with the session, wow! It was just beautiful being together. Eventually everybody left and we just hung out all through the lunchtime laying there cuddling, you know, then I think we had a date the day after, and almost since that day... and she knows for sure, we've been almost every night together, 24 hours a day. So it's weird in a way, it's amazing, just amazing... but no I didn't know she was a singer... she wasn't a singer. |
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| P: |
She was a violinist? |
| M: |
She wasn't playing. She wasn't recognized as doing music or anything like that. She was in the ashram learning bodywork, that was her thing. She'd done the Divine Healing Training, the Re-balancing Training, later on she did a massage training and later the Cranio-Sacral training, always into bodywork. So I wouldn't call her a violinist, no. |
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| P: |
So how did it come about? Her singing? |
| M: |
One morning, I was sitting on the edge of the bed playing guitar as usual and I think she said to me, 'Can you listen to me and see what you think?' |
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| P: |
How long into the relationship was this? |
| M: |
I don't know, you'd have to ask her...she's good at dates. |
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| P: |
Yes, but years or months? |
| M: |
A year, maybe a year. So there was a whole time that she and I weren't connected in music. When she sang what I heard was that she sang in tune and she sang the harmonies well... like if I sang a well known Osho song, she would know the harmony. I realized she could listen and she could sing what she'd heard. It was like -- where did you learn that? But she was singing zer is zo much magnificence...!
(Comment from Deva: "He is exaggerating again!") |
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| P: |
You mean because of her accent? |
| M: |
No!... Yes!.. She could sing the notes but her voice was not ready for anything...like it was something that was coming from her head. She'd heard it, and she could translate it, but it was all up there in her head where it was happening! |
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| P: |
But she had training when she was younger? |
| M: |
Yeah, so now we get to the point, I asked her how did you learn to do that? And she says, 'I've been playing the violin since I was a little kid and my mother's a music teacher, so I've been always having piano lessons and violin lessons and singing lessons.' All that stuff she'd been having with her mother. |
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| P: |
And she hadn't told you that in all that time? |
| M: |
I don't think so...maybe she did...maybe, but anyway I didn't get it. So by playing violin, her ears had become trained to hear notes, and now when she sings--that's the amazing thing about Deva--when she sings her pitch never wavers. You know sometimes when you sing you can go a bit flat or a bit sharp? She's very accurate with her pitching, very accurate. I thought: 'Yeah, let's do it! Let's practice it!' |
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| P: |
Presumably you used to do music around her, and she would just keep quiet? Until this time, and then you actually invited her in? |
| M: |
Yeah. |
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| P: |
So what was the first thing you ever did together? |
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I would take her into Music Group and put her in there with the other girls and eventually it just grew. |
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| P: |
That really is an amazing story, that Deva was already trained and everything and not using it. Like a seed. |
| M: |
Exactly! Exactly that, it was like, wow! The seed! Now we've been eight years playing music. It's amazing, really amazing: I was 43 years old and there I meet this beautiful little flower that's just budding. And I get the chance to hang out for eight years and watch it blossom, it's just amazing. So I have so much juice to get out of her way and let her grow in her own way and develop it all. ( laughing)... |
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| P: |
I never knew that, but I have to say that when I talk about Deva's new album in London, people tell me that the last CD is more popular than anything Miten's done....sorry... |
| M: |
I know, man... there is that thing that some people think that maybe I'm jealous, but I'm not. Not at all. I'm proud! The Essence has opened up so many doors for us. Especially in America where we play to all kinds of different people. It's a big seller over there in all the yoga centers. So it's great to get to play to so many new people. Plus having something nice to share with them... |
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| P: |
So you got a proper deal with this one, so you made money from it, did you? |
| M: |
No, the 'Proper Deals' are the ones you don't make money on. |
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| P: |
When I say 'proper' I mean financially sound. |
| M: |
 We did it ourselves, we started ourselves. After I got out of the New Earth (Record) thing, I thought, 'OK, I'm not gonna do that again, we can sell the albums ourselves.'And that's what we did, and then we started the thing of keeping it to ourselves. It's worked out beautifully. What we did, we did Global Heart, Native Soul (Veeresh is on that one), Strength of a Rose, and Trusting the Silence. Those three we sold, we sold them at the concerts and at centers... anyway, we sold a few thousand of each, enough to get our money back and to keep us going. Then we sold the rights to Nightingale Records for five years, so those albums are gone as far as the rights are concerned, but they kept us going... they got us started. And then we did Deva's album and that just went wooft!!! |
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 Now we've sold over 20 thousand...you think: 20 thousand! Just financially if I'd given it to a record company it would be like one Deutschmark per CD. So when someone buys that CD for, what?... 10 quid (pounds) or whatever they go for, suddenly you're looking at a lot of money. Well, for us! We've been manufacturing them, paying for everything. We put the money back into what we're doing. Like, her new album. That's why! |
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| P: |
Sounds like you should definitely keep Deva's stuff like that. |
| M: |
Yeah, yeah, but it's not a problem. If a big company wanted it, it would be difficult to let it go unless we got a real good deal. Because we can sell it ourselves. We found our little network of people and they sell it all over the place, people keep buying it, new people come in.... |
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| P: |
Yes, we can always sell that at Osho Leela (a groovy commune in England). |
| M: |
It's incredible, it's a drug!! It's a beautiful thing. |
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The first album that really helped us was Strength of a Rose. It gave us the confidence to do concerts alone, just the two of us.  Before then we would always take some musicians out with us... Devakant or somebody, because we didn't really have the confidence that we could do a concert alone. We didn't really feel we could do that, especially Deva, because she was still growing. She was very much behind me at that point, supporting me...supporting Miten, singing harmonies. Then when Strength of a Rose took off, we realized, wow! I didn't really know people kinda loved that, I didn't really get it. |
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| P: |
It's so special. |
| M: |
Yeah, well I know it now. So we thought, 'OK, we can do that. OK.' We started doing some concerts alone, and it was so great! Then about a year after that I said to her, 'You should do some of these mantras...on an album.' |
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 She knew the mantras from her father who used to sing them to her. She grew up singing mantras with this eccentric, artistic father, who was already 50 or something when he fathered her. She grew up in a very unique environment, very unique. Now I know her parents... they're also surprised at her. Like, when she was eleven years old she was already doing Dynamic Meditation every day with all the German sannyasins, you know, everybody naked every morning... like the way it used to be? Then at 11 years old, 11 or 12, and the ranch was going on, she wasn't officially allowed into Mandir to see Osho because she wasn't old enough, but she was first in line every morning, first one to get in. And she was totally into it. She never was a sannyasin kid like in the ashram or Ko Hsuan or anything like that, but she was just totally into meditation. |
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And the mantras, we were singing them because we did voice workshops so I was into it, learning mantras and chants for the voice workshops. We would have a bunch of stuff to sing there... but, anyway, she wasn't ready. She said, 'No, no, not me.' |
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I said, 'It'll be easy. We'll get some keyboards, and you just sing... make it really like a sound people use for massage, you just sing it and it's easy to make those New Age albums'. I thought, 'Yeah, we could do that with Deva. 'But she wasn't ready. |
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And I think about a year later she said, 'I think I'm ready to make that album now.' |
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I said, 'Fantastic.. now we go for it!' |
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 So we got Rishi down from Denmark and Maneesh and me and Deva and we did that album in three weeks. The Essence... in the wintertime, in Deva's mother's apartment, in the room next to the room she was born in where her father and her mother were singing the Gayatri Mantra to her! But none of us, including me, were prepared for how great she sang those mantras... it was awesome. She told me she would be singing the Gayatri Mantra--we put her in one room to sing in. And she said, 'You know, I can feel the Presence.' She could just feel it! She was in there singing this mantra, and she was feeling the Presence... |
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And that's on the plastic, that whole thing is right there. That's an ingredient you cannot manufacture! That's why it's so magical. No matter how much you try, no matter how much money you've got... there are a few great musicians who can bring that presence onto the plastic, but not many. It takes much more than technique. So, for us listening to her, it was goose bumps. Deva happened just by chance almost, we didn't really know. It's not like we all had this great hope, 'Deva was gonna be such a great singer.' But she was, and it's all there on that Gayatri Mantra...and that's where I met Deva! |
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| P: |
(Sigh): Nice story! |
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