Tom Alter called himself 'fully desi' and 'fully American'

Rahul Da Cunha reminisces about meeting the late actor Tom Alter in the early 1990s during his days as a casting director for a play

I first met Tom Alter in the early 1990s. I was casting for Gurcharan Das's British Raj play, Larins Sahib, set in 1857, about the life of Brigadier General Henry Lawrence and his love for Maharaja Ranjit Singh's widow Rani Jindan Kaur. The crucial lead needed to be a foreigner who could also seamlessly be Indian. Only one man in India could play that part -- Thomas Beach Alter. I also realised that if he said no, I wouldn't be able to do the play.

As I walked into his Bombay Central home, he was on the phone, fully sweaty after a basketball game, a sport he played every day at the YMCA courts. What first struck me was his accent; he was speaking to someone in Hindi, occasionally breaking into Urdu. And when he spoke to me, the lilt in his baritone was a fully Yank accent. "How can your Urdu be so 'shuddh' and your English still have such an American twang?," I asked. 'That's me', he said smiling, "Fully desi and fully American."

Tom, Rajit Kapur, Nisha Singh and a host of other actors began rehearsing. The mind boggled at how he seeped himself into the twin challenge of playing both Britisher Henry Lawrence and an avatar of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

We opened in March 1991 at the magnificent Darbar Hall at Asiatic Library in Horniman Circle. Our production was invited to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the first ever Indian play to perform at the prestigious event. Twenty one shows in 21 days, followed by shows in Glasgow and London, Tom absolutely wowed audiences, both, 'gora' and NRI.

Tom and I lost touch over the years, though the affection remained. I watched as his passion for acting got more intense. And he didn't seem satisfied with flimsy roles. He picked Maulana Azad and Mirza Ghalib as challenges, and excelled at both. He conquered television, movies and theatre with equal aplomb.

The thing about Tom, his greatest quality, was his humility. There was confidence in his craft but an absence of the ego. Tom wanted to make the most of his life. And he truly lived it to the fullest. Whether on screen, the stage or the cricket pitch, he redefined one quality, dignity.

Rahul da Cunha is an adman and theatre director-playwright. Write to him at rahuldacunha62@gmail.com

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