Bobby Cash: The Dehradun boy who became the ‘Indian Cowboy’ in Australia, now heads to the big screen

(Sep 23, 2026) Growing up in Clement Town, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, Bobby Cash was drawn to the sound of American country music and taught himself to play the guitar. In 2003, that unlikely passion led to an opportunity to perform at Australia’s Tamworth Country Music Festival, where the musician from the Doon Valley became known as “The Indian Cowboy”. Charting albums, international recognition and a documentary followed. Now, his remarkable three-decade India-Australia journey is coming to the big screen.

For a boy growing up in Dehradun, country music could hardly have seemed like the most obvious soundtrack to life. Yet, surrounded by the forests and mountains of the Doon Valley, Bal Kishore Das Loiwal found himself drawn to the music of American cowboys, western films and guitar players he had never met.

Decades later, that fascination would take him from the Himalayan foothills to Tamworth, the heart of Australian country music, where he became known as the “Indian Cowboy”.

He would come to be known professionally as Bobby Cash, a name that grew from the childhood nicknames Babu and Kish. What started with a fascination with a distant musical world would eventually take Bobby into a genre thousands of kilometres from its traditional home, where he developed a musical identity of his own.

I always feel it was country music that found me as a child in Dehradun. My aunt who lived in Nashville would send records of country music, and our home was filled with the country sound. It’s the music I grew up with. The music came and found me, and it just felt right to me, like it belonged to me, and I belonged to it.

Bobby Cash

A story of music, migration and identity

Now, Bobby’s remarkable journey is headed to the big screen. An Australia-India feature film inspired by Bobby’s life has been announced by New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, bringing together Australian and Indian filmmakers to tell a story that began in Dehradun and found an unexpected second home in regional New South Wales.

The film will be directed by Sydney-based filmmaker Anupam Sharma, with NSW writer-director Victoria Wharfe McIntyre as screenwriter and Satish Sharma as Indian co-producer.

“I will be on board as an Executive Producer and of course will be involved with the music of the film as songwriter, composer, singer and guitar player along with some very capable musicians,” Bobby shares with The Global Indian. “Regardless of which actor plays me, it will be my voice and my guitar that the audience will hear in the musical bits. Maybe I will show up on screen as myself in a short cameo depending on the director’s approach,” he remarks.

Bobby Cash after the recent announcement of the Indo-Australian film on his journey

The sound that came from Nashville

Bobby grew up in Clement Town, Dehradun, in a Christian family where music was part of everyday life. His father came from a business background rather than a professional musical one, but there was always music at home.

An aunt who had moved to Nashville, Tennessee, the country music capital, in the early 1960s would send the latest country music releases to his mother. Country music, shaped by American folk traditions and known for its stories of everyday life, love, heartbreak and the open road, introduced the young Bobby in Dehradun to a musical world that felt distant in geography but familiar in spirit.

At a time when music was experienced largely through vinyl records, he listened closely to every song. There was no YouTube, internet or digital library to show him how the music was played, and no country music teacher nearby. Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, two influential American country musicians, became part of his musical world, along with the guitar players he admired. He taught himself to sing and play, working things out by ear and practising for hours.

Growing up I loved all music, but I was drawn to country music, the music of the Cowboys.

Bobby Cash

He was also fascinated by the world surrounding the music, from cowboys, hats and boots to western films and stories. Over time, the guitar became more than an instrument. It was his constant companion, and he developed his own way of playing, combining bass lines, rhythm, finger-picking and lead guitar.

His first taste of stage

Bobby’s first taste of the spotlight had come when he was just 10. At his convent school, run by Italian nuns, a teacher learned that Bobby had recently started playing guitar and singing. He was summoned to the Principal’s office, where the teacher, Principal and Mother Superior were waiting with a record player.

They wanted him to hear a song. It was American singer Jim Reeves’ This World Is Not My Home, a song he already knew because it was played frequently at home. The Mother Superior wanted Bobby to perform it at the annual school concert, accompanying himself on guitar.

A month later, he walked onto the stage in a fancy costume with a frilled shirt. He was also burning with fever. “But I gave it my all, for the show must go on!!” he recalls. The performance earned him applause and made him, as he remembers it, a “little school celebrity”. “It was amazing that I was picked to sing a country song. And though, at ten, I was not a baritone like Jim Reeves, I did sing with my little voice while strumming my guitar just right!”

Between books and the guitar

Music did not mean abandoning academics. Bobby went on to study English Literature, History and Economics during his graduation and later enrolled in a Master’s in Economics, although he did not complete the final year.

I guess I wanted to spend more time with my guitar than preparing for an exam. However, I was, and still am, a big time reader, and I can still spend hours and hours with books

Bobby Cash

However, later, his musical journey brought an unexpected academic distinction of another kind. He was conferred an honorary doctorate in music.

Leaving Dehradun for a professional stage

As he grew up Bobby started giving music lessons and occasionally performed for the armed forces. After his father’s death, he moved to New Delhi in 1995 to pursue music professionally.

One of his early stages was Rodeo, a Tex-Mex restaurant in Connaught Place. What began with an open-mic performance developed into a regular engagement. The venue also brought him into contact with expatriates and international visitors, giving him an audience beyond the Indian music scene.

He experimented briefly with Indian pop, releasing Yeh Pyaar Hai in 1996 with Magnasound, Film Hits on Guitar, and Ruk Ja Baby in 1998 with Archies Music. But country music remained the pull. He returned to the genre that had first captured his imagination in Clement Town.

The invitation that changed everything

The major turning point came in 2003, when Bobby had a chance meeting in New Delhi with Australian film producer Colin Bromley.

Bromley invited him to perform at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in Australia. For Bobby, it was an extraordinary transition. He had grown up learning American country music from records sent by an aunt in Nashville. Now he was travelling to Australia, home to its own deeply established country music culture, to perform the music he had taught himself thousands of kilometres away.

When he arrived in Tamworth in January 2003, he was an unknown Indian musician. His background made him unusual, but it was his music that caught the attention of audiences and the media. One Australian farmer Roy Eykamp was so impressed by his talent that he subsequently offered to finance Bobby’s debut country album.

Becoming the Indian Cowboy

Cowboy at Heart, produced by Golden Guitar winner Lawrie Minson, marked an important new phase in Bobby’s career. The album featured collaborations with Smoky Dawson and Tania Kernaghan, and several of his recordings reached the Australian country charts.

And then there was the name that followed him: “The Indian Cowboy”. Bobby did not have to choose between being Indian and embracing the cowboy culture that had fascinated him since childhood. In his telling, the two identities sat comfortably together.

This name was never my invention, and I was amused when I first heard it. Then it kind of grew on me because I think it’s two words that really describe who I am and what I am about… I am a true-blue Indian by birth, ethnicity and nationality, and I am proud of being so. Yet, at heart, I am also about as cowboy as you can get. I am not just a singer of cowboy songs, but I am the cowboy who’s a real Indian, and the Indian who is a cowboy at heart.

Bobby Cash

His Australian recordings continued with Phoenix to El Paso in 2005 and State of My Heart in 2006, with tracks from his recordings reaching the Australian country Top 10. He also released the single Ashiyaan in 2014.

He toured extensively in Australia, performing in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Tamworth, while also continuing to tour India and promote country music.

From Tamworth to one in a billion, and recognition at Nashville

Bobby’s unusual journey soon became a story beyond the music itself. His experience in Tamworth and subsequent rise in Australia became the subject of the 2004 documentary The Indian Cowboy…One in a Billion, which aired on ABC Television Australia and was later screened on Discovery India.

The story then took him to Nashville, the city whose music had reached him as a child through his aunt’s records. In 2005, the Country Music Association in Nashville recognised Bobby and invited him as a nominee for its Global Artist of the Year Award, which recognised artists furthering country music outside the United States.

He did not win the award, but the nomination brought him into the Nashville country music establishment. “The nomination meant that I truly belonged to the world of country music and that my music was approved and endorsed by Country Music Association, Nashville, which is the home of country music,” he remarks. He performed at The Stage on Broadway in Nashville and received a standing ovation, with then CMA chief Ed Benson among those who recognised his work, mentioning, “Bobby Cash is the genuine article’.

Australia gave him a stage but Dehradun remained home

Bobby spent years touring Australia and performing internationally, but Dehradun remained home. He continues to be based in Clement Town, where he lives with his wife Angelina.

His own journey across countries has also been reflected in his family. Angelina is Indian and was born and brought up in different parts of Africa before her parents moved back to India when she was in her late teens. The couple have two children.

His connection with Dehradun has extended beyond simply calling it home, with Bobby also involved in educational initiatives in the community.

Asked after all these years of travelling and performing internationally, what does Dehradun and Clement Town mean, and his answer is: “Three words, Home, Sweet Home.”

Before Tamworth, before Nashville and the “Indian Cowboy” name, there was a boy in Clement Town listening to records sent from Nashville and learning to play the guitar without a teacher.

The music travelled thousands of kilometres before Bobby did. Now, more than three decades after that journey began, his story is travelling again, this time from Dehradun and Tamworth to the big screen.

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