Tom Alter — Fusion of east and west
Posted on February 27, 2009
Filed Under East meets West, MOVIES | Leave a Comment
A native of the small city of Mussorie, Tom Alter is the son of American missionaries and has lived for years between the metropolis of Mumbai and the Himalayas.  As a child, he studied Hindi and Urdu, as a result, he speaks impeccable Hindi.” He has recently been awarded Padmasri by the Indian Government.
Alter  has vast knowledge of Indian culture and is deeply connected to Indian traditions. He has worked for noted filmmakers. He has also played Indian characters on Indian television series, such as the long-running Junoon, in which he was the sadistic mob lord Keshav Kalsi. Tom Alter has also acted in Hollywood movies like  One Night With The King with the legendary Peter O’Toole. Born to an Indian father and American mother , Tom is a great fan of Rajesh Khanna. So he thought of following Rajesh Khanna and joined film institute of Pune. Though he has done three movies ‘Chameli Memsahib’ in Assamese,  ’Agantuk’ and ‘Gaja Mukta’ in Bengali, he has many more films in the pipeline like ‘Dhundh – The Fog’, ‘Zindadil’, ‘The Art of Dying’ and ‘Hawaein’. He is also  a writer with books like The Longest Race, Rerun at Rialto, The Best in the world, and also a sports journalist with a special interest in Cricket, a game on which he has written extensively in publications like Sports week, Outlook, Cricket talk, Sunday Observer, Debonair,etc. He plays cricket for a film industry team MCC(Match Cut Club), consisting of Naseeruddin Shah, Satish Shah, Vishal Bhardwaj, Aamir Khan, Nana Patekar, Bhupinder Singh, Amarinder Sangha, among others.  Tom has also worked as the red robe guru in Mukesh Khanna’s Production Shaktiman(1998-2002).
Oh my God! he is for sure a  multi faceted  personality.
 These days, Tom Alter is playing the role of a freedom fighter and a former Education Minister of India, Maulana Azad. He is excited about his role and un doubtedly, he fits the bill of Maulana Azad with his acquired knowledge of chaste Urdu. Tom has portrayed the Maulana’s deep knowledge and diction of the Urdu language. Besides, he says he had to learn smoking cigarettes as the Maulana used to do. Tom had never smoked a cigarette in his life.
He is very positive  about this role of the Maulana and says, “It is a privilege to get into the coat of Maulana Azad. I love speaking Urdu and have learnt it after a hard work of seven years. ”Inshaa Allah” Hopefully  we will be seeing more of him in the coming years of Bollywood and Hollywood.
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