Up close and personal, with Tom Alter: Capturing the versatile actor's many moods
Ajay Suri shares a few candid images of Tom Alter, taken as they worked on films in India’s wilderness
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Tom Alter was a man of many passions, but he never wore these on his sleeve. Many-a-times, he was the preferred ‘master of ceremonies’, but in his free time, he preferred solitude over socialising. In the photo here, we see the self-confessed sports buff engaged in a game of cricket. He was equally passionate about hockey.
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I considered myself lucky to have a good peek or two beyond the shell Tom saab had so assiduously set up around himself. Maybe this is a defining trait of actors… I wouldn’t know, as I haven’t known many. Here, Tom saab is seen at Gurney House, Jim Corbett’s summer home in Nainital.
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It was at night, around the campfire, that Tom would open up. At one such campire in Rajasthan he told me, “It was during the ‘90s, Mumbai had nothing new to offer. I decided to reinvent myself. I knew a smattering of Urdu, but not its nuances. I got hold of an Urdu teacher, learnt the fine points of the language for about a year.” Here, Tom saab is seen reading from Jim Corbett’s classic, ‘The Man-Eaters of Kumaon’, for a group of schoolchildren.
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I forgot to ask who the teacher was. But we all know about Tom Alter’s spectacular success in theatre thereafter, in play after play — including ‘Ghalib Ek Akhiri Mushaira’, ‘Ghalib in Delhi’ and the riveting two-hour solo ‘Maulana Azad’. In Delhi, all these plays were smash hits, sold out days in advance. Tom Alter was one of the most hassle-free people to work with. There were no pretensions, no false notes.
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Nature, wildlife, open spaces away from cities — he hankered after them. And also his cup of tea!
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We know Rajesh Khanna was his reason for enterting tinseltown. But Jim Corbett, hunter-turned-conservationist and author of such classics as ‘The Man-Eaters of Kumaon’, was a hero who preceded Khanna. Here, on the sets of one of the films we made in India’s wilderness, Alter seems to say: ‘Let’s see how the shot has come out.’
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Tom Alter wanted desperately to play Jim Corbett. But who would finance such a project? In the end, nobody did… This candid moment could very well be captioned: ‘Silence, and please don’t rock the boat!’
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