Hindu Houdini is the nickname fellow classmates gave Harold Rundas when he was attending university at Cambridge in England - a word play on the name of the famous American magician Harry Houdini. Harold Rundas often found time between classes to show off his skills as a prestidigitator and occasionally pulling a prank or two on fellow classmates. Harry performed on stage in several school shows one of which as luck would have it was attended by a BBC producer looking for unusual variety acts. This landed Harry a gig on television for the BBC where he performed his special brand of comedy magic and was very well received.

After earning his doctorate in theatre arts Harry returned home to India with much enthusiasm, where he created the Gilli Gilli hour of magic and fun for Indian television.

Dr. Harold Rundas has appeared as the character Hindu Houdini in 9 feature length films in India. He has written, directed, and produced many commercials, film shorts and feature length titles, with a total of 136 Indian films in all.

Indian television audiences will remember Dr. Rundas from the Gilli Gilli show that ran on Indian television from 1976 till September of 1980. Hindu Houdini has appeared on three magic specials for the Sony TV channel in Japan. He has appeared in many variety shows for the BBC and one magic special produced for Channel Four England. Europe has seen 14 television appearances by Dr. Rundas. He made many radio and television appearances on Canadian TV during the late 1980s.