Bright Light Cafe - Showcased Talent

The Bright Light Café Presents ...

Ravi Bedi

Biography:

Ravi was born in India in 1939 and grew up in Jodhpur, the second largest town in the state of Rajasthan, India. He is a writer, a musician and a self taught artist who has been painting in oils for the last last forty years. He is also a Retired Engineer (Wg Cdr) from the Indian Air Force.

Ravi has been happily married to Aruna for over forty years, confessing that he fell in love with her when they first met in 1957. After 14 years of marriage they were graced with the birth of their beautiful daughter, Mahima.

Ravi's father died when he was young so he was mainly raised by his mother. Ravi admits this part of his life was not always easy but he feels this time instilled in him a good sense of the true values in life. He also found great solace and joy by being creative - withdrawing into his own world of music, solitude and fantasies.

From Ravi:

I was a dreamer … I still am.

As I entered college, I longed for my own room, which was not to be. However, I settled for a tin-shed on the roof covered by temporary partition walls. You could bake a cake there under the hot-tin roof during summers! But I was happy, and the way I meticulously laid out my things, including the organ that my father used to play, impressed the whole lot in the colony. It was my world where I shared my music with friends.

I wanted to be a musician or an architect, but I landed up doing engineering in Benaras. I did more music there than engineering. And then I joined the Air Force for the sheer lure of the blue uniform. I knew that I was in the wrong profession from day one. Despite a creative bent of mind, I had got into a destructive field. The creative urge in me, however, drove me to painting, of which, I have done a lot in the years to follow.

I did not rise much in the Air Force, but my wife and I had some wonderful, memorable times during the service. We made lasting friends, and some who did not last! Eventually, I left the Air Force at the right time to convert my ancestral home into a small, but cosy hotel in town. I get to meet interesting people from around the world, besides making some money to put the meat on the table. Now, in my retirement, I paint, play the Yamaha, play golf, and do some writing. The golf course is just across my house that I designed myself and built just before I retired from the service. I can Tee off from my roof- top, and play a par-three dog-leg on the third green! What more can you ask? I have never enjoyed life better than I am doing now.

Writing is a recent indulgence, and a difficult one at that … for I learnt more abuses in school than English prose. I am trying to be better, although painting, golf or playing Yamaha is much easier.

But for the computer, I would have been lost in my own world. Now I can share with you all, my thoughts, my music, my writings, and my art. Oh … there’s a lot more to be done … time is running out. Let’s get cracking before it’s too late.