Born 22 June 1950 Mussoorie and died 29 September 2017 Mumbai
PrashantNews
I met Tom Alter only once in 2007 but it left an indelible memory that was completely at odds with his persona in the Hindi movies.
After watching his theatre performance (Pierrot’s Troupe) at the ONGC Auditorium in Dehradun, I was in awe. I was waiting impatiently for a meeting with Alter now. Before that, I didn’t know much about him except that he was a good Bollywood actor. Naturally, I got mesmerized when I saw him speaking in Hindi and Urdu fluently. Till that date, I had seen him speaking English and broken Hindi in Bollywood movies, most of the time playing the role of a brute British Army officer in pictures like Kranti. I hardly watched Junoon where he played the character of Keshav Kalsi.
REACH, an Uttarakhand-based NGO, had invited Alter to give a theatre performance for its mega festival Virasat in Dehradun. I went to cover the function. From beginning till end, the performance was mesmerizing. Alter was retelling the story of the Bollywood legend K L Saigal.
And when the function ended, Alter invited me for a gup-shup over a cup of tea at the request of organizers. And when I told him that just like Saigal, I was also born in Jammu, he immediately quipped: “You Jammuwala! What are doing in Dehradun?” I tried to answer back in the same tone. Mustering some courage I said in my own style: “same what you Britishwala are doing in India.” After a pause, he said “I am not a British. I am a proud Indian born in Mussoorie”, he said. Later I came to know that his grandparents had migrated to India from Ohio in US. He was an Indian born American.
Coming back to the theatre performance, I still remember the pin drop silence inside the auditorium as Alter sat on the stage-floor retelling the aura and era of Saigal, right from the very beginning when he was born in Jammu.
Alter started recounting the story of Saigal in his inimitable style. No papers in Hands, he recounted the entire biographical story of Saigal from A to Z in just one hour. During this short performance, I don’t think I heard any sound in the auditorium other than one or two hushed tones in the back. In the end, a standing ovation was given to Alter which he rightfully deserved.
Caption: My story in Deccan Herald Newspaper