Thanks to its members, the 46-year-old restaurateur is planning a trip to Disneyland with his three grandchildren.

His first proper holiday in almost a decade, where he will enjoy a beer and any food he fancies, free from the dietary restrictions of kidney dialysis.

After seven and a half years, including one failed transplant and another botched operation in Pakistan which almost killed him, Bobby has just undergone a successful kidney transplant.

He said: "I feel blessed by whatever God is up there. Every day when I wake up I can't wait to get out of bed."

Earlier this year Bobby, from Glasgow, was called by medics at Glasgow's Western Infirmary and told that he could be given one of two kidneys from a Manchester donor.

Amazingly, after the operation, the kidneys started working in Bobby and the second recipient within minutes of each other, three days after they had been transplanted.

He said: "It is a miracle that a kidney is taken out and the blood supply is cut off. Then it is transported hundreds of miles and everything is connected up and it springs into life."

Before 'that call' came on February 16, Bobby says he had stopped answering the phone if it rang during the night - there had been too many false alarms and disappointments for him, his wife Beant and family.

"I just didn't think it was ever going to happen. It got to the stage I was just letting the phone ring," he says.

"When I was originally told I needed a transplant they said it would take three years."

British people from black and ethnic minority groups wait, on average, twice as long as others on the transplant list and Bobby knows of another Asian man who has been waiting for 25 years.

The restaurateur was a healthy and fit father-of-three, working long hours in the family business, Mr Singh's India, when he began to feel unwell during a Scotland match at Hampden in November 2004.

He was told that both kidneys had shut down.

He made the "desperate" decision to pay £22,000 for a transplant in Pakistan in 2005. However, during his flight back to Glasgow, he became gravely ill.

Doctors saw the new organ was dying, and removed it.

Bobby admits that, in moments of desperation, he thought about taking his own life, adding: "It was either that or go abroad again for an op which again might not work."

Although patients can continue having dialysis their entire life, Kidney Research UK say some people eventually ask to be taken off the machine because they can't take anymore - and knowing they will die within days.

Even when the call came from the Western at February 16 at 3.30am with news that a possible match had been he found, Bobby refused to get his hopes up.

He said "The doctor said 'we have a possible kidney, you have to come in now'.

"I said 'can you give me half an hour' she said, 'can you make it less than that?'

"I wasn't getting my hopes up though - my experience was the same as for others waiting for a transplant.

"Six people can turn up for a kidney and it goes to the most suitable person."

On this occasion though, Bobby was the only person who turned up at Glasgow's Western Infirmary.

They carried out all the medical checks and all the signs were good.

Then came an anxious wait as tests were carried out on the donor kidney in Manchester to find out if it was a suitable match

Finally, at around 1pm on February 17 Bobby was told he was being taken down to theatre.

Like most transplant patients, he was put back on dialysis until the new kidney began working.

Three days later he was taken off the machine he had been hooked up to 12 hours a week for almost eight years, just like hundreds of other people waiting for a transplant.

Bobby is now adjusting to his new life, with new-found energy. He now prefers red wine to white and has developed a taste for foods such as pasta.

Some believe transplant recipients can take on some characteristics of the donor.

In a year or so, he says, he will write a letter to the family which consented to their loved one's organs to be transplanted. The charity recommends at least a year before recipients contact the donor family, giving them time to grieve.

Meanwhile, Bobby says he will keep campaigning for a change in Scotland's organ donation laws to help others needing transplants.

Bobby and brother Satty are ardent supporters of the Evening Times' Opt for Life campaign which is calling on the Scottish Government to switch to an opt-out system of organ donation, similar to Wales.

He said: "It's the way forward. Right now organs are being wasted - money is wasted on dialysis. If Wales can do it why not us."

caroline.wilson@eveningtimes.co.uk