[citation needed] Deciding that Europe would offer their children the possibility of a superior education, the Kars family left India for France.
They lived for some years in a small town in the Haute Loire, but eventually settled in Paris where Gustav found employment in a private Jewish school.
[citation needed] During this time the Kars family lived in a working-class area of Paris called quartier Alésia, in an apartment so cramped that the piano and a tiny bath installation (isolated by a curtain) had to be kept in the same room.
[citation needed] Although he possessed a varied and eclectic repertoire, ranging from Bach to Schoenberg, Kars then specialized in the works of Olivier Messiaen.
Having begun to study Messiaen's music and writings as long ago as 1966, Kars credits him with playing an important role in his eventual conversion to Catholicism and his vocation as a priest, and considers him his 'first spiritual father'.