DR. VIJAY BENEDICT Former Bolloywood singer for gospel concerts in TT

Benedict, who was born into a Catholic home in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh will be performing Christian hymns in Hindi at the concerts.

The shows begin on Wednesday (May 22) when he will sing at the Williamsville Secondary School beginning at 6.30 pm. On May 23, Benedict will be at the Couva/Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce Building at 5.30 pm for a Women’s Tea event and on Friday May 24 he will be performing at Miracle Ministries, Couva from 7 pm.

The schedule continues on Saturday May 25 at the Barrackpore Secondary School from 5 pm, at the Faith Centre, San Fernando from 8 am on Sunday May 26 and at Happy Hill Grounds, Rousillac, from 5 pm on the same day. On May 28 he goes to St Julien Recreation Ground from 5pm and on Indian Arrival Day he will be performing at the Hilton Mitchell Park, Marculay, Dow Village, California at 5 pm. The final concert will take place at the Ojoe Recreation Ground, Sangre Grande, at 5 pm on Friday May 31.

After completing postgraduate studies in Business Management at the University of Allahabad, Benedict went straight into Bollywood films.

“I joined the film industry to get public and professional recognition. There is no other forum in the sub-continent unlike the west where aspiring talents have abundant opportunities,” he said. He recorded playback songs for over 35 films, working with top Hindi film music directors such as Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Usha Khanna, Anu Malik and Anand-Milind.

He did most of his songs with Bhappi Lahiri, one of India’s biggest and most successful music directors. Dr Benedict sang the theme song “I Am a Disco Dancer” from the film Disco Dancer.

“I became known as superstar Mithun Chakraborty’s voice,” he said. Benedict has also performed in many concerts with Mithun.

“We share a great relationship because he knows that I’m also very fond of social work so we often did charity shows together for orphans and widows,” he said.

Dr Benedict became the first singer in Hindi films to gain a gold disc with a first song and had achieved the highs that every artist desires and dreams of. At a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall the audience gave him a standing ovation. They forced him to keep returning to the stage several times even after the show had ended.

Disco Dancer was his dream debut, a virtual newcomer to the Hindi entertainment scene that catapulted him overnight to the heights of fame and glory.

“I had everything I wanted and more and there was no stopping that drive. I was busy making money, enjoying the popularity and being invited to concerts in Dubai, the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, Australia and New Zealand among other countries,” he said, adding that he thought he had everything going perfectly.

But his story is about how God touched him in the saddest time of my life.

This is his testimony, he says, “The brutal murder of my younger brother in Germany stopped me in my fast tracks to rethink about my life and its purpose. As I was vying to become number one in Bollywood ...suddenly one day I got a telegram from the Indian consulate in Bonn that my younger brother who was doing well in the hotel industry in Germany, had been murdered and that I would have to go and collect his body.

Benedict said his bother was trying to stop drug dealing taking place in the hotel where he worked, and would not give in to death threats. His brother was killed and his body thrown into a lake. The killer was caught.

“It was a very sorrowful and devastating experience for me. I couldn’t help weeping openly as I stood looking at his room and all the material wealth he had acquired in Germany. I found that he had everything he wanted. Every kind of material item was there except my brother. That really hit me hard. It made me realise that tomorrow I would also have to go and leave everything behind. I realised then that I had acquired so much wealth, popularity and fame but it was all going to be of no use if one day I too would leave everything behind me and go. That was the turning point in my life that led me to search God and reality,” Benedict said.

He recalled that he returned to India and would roam Bombay’s Juhu beach searching for answers. He was even arrested on suspicion of being involved in criminal activity, but was released when it became known who he was.

He said, “My search for answers led me to many places. Coming from a Roman Catholic background it led me to churches. I’d go to Mount Mary and ask the priest every morning to pray for me but I wouldn’t find peace. One day, I came across some born again Christians whose way of life, spontaneity, and worship, slowly and surely brought me to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Benedict said he found the peace he was looking for and was able to forgive his brother’s killer. “I was determined to kill him when he came out of jail after seven years. I planed to do this with some bad friends in London. I don’t know if I would have gone through with that plan. I’m not a man of violence. But there was this deliberate thought in my mind of trading revenge. It was only when I met these Christians who showed me their love and care. They pointed me to Jesus and His love that He forgave everybody, even as He was dying on the cross.”

Benedict testified that he accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savour. “The choice I made was final. It was at a cost. Jesus said, ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his soul?’ I have lost my soul in Bollywood and found it back in Jesus Christ. I found peace, joy and happiness. And I clung to it.”