Rico Rao

The author was born and grew up in Bandra (West), a Bombay suburb that was the epicenter of India’s mega film industry where professionals of every industry resided. He studied at English medium Catholic schools, attended a trade course and left to work in the state of Qatar at 21, eventually earning the position of ‘personal marine attendant’ to the crown prince due to his upstanding attitude. He then spent a year in Saudi Arabia as an instrument fitter, working on the construction of a GOSP (Gas and Oil Separation Plant) and on the world’s largest desalination plant at Jubail.

After five years in the Middle East, he migrated to Australia, where he held many jobs that gained him friends and foes in disproportionate numbers. Three of his full-time jobs, each for ten years or more, were as ‘field investigator’ for a federal government department, ‘aviation security analyst’ at Sydney International Airport and ‘front of house staff’ at the recently demolished Sydney Entertainment Centre, where he witnessed performances by internationally renowned artists of every stripe.

He acknowledges that all through life he was never well disciplined, though he consistently and conscientiously documented any and every incident, inspiration and idea that he witnessed or that came to him. He is currently collating more than five decades of his written works in various genres: novels, poems, film scripts, musical plays, song lyrics (in seven genres, for adults and children) and product promotion jingles for multi-national corporations.