A particularly intriguing piece of faux mechanical technology (while presented as entirely automated, it in fact concealed a strong human chess player inside), it drew scores of thousands of spectators to its games, the opponents for which included Harry Houdini, Theodore Roosevelt, and O. Henry.
He has acted in the Bollywood films Bada Din, Kareeb, Sangharsh, Mission Kashmir and Kasoor and in television serials A Mouthful of Sky, Bheja Fry, X-Zone, Samandar, Khushi, and Ajeeb Dastan.