Shams Ahsan

Saudi Gazette



JEDDAH – His grandparents came to India in 1916 from Ohio as American missionaries. He was born in Mussoorie, now in Uttarakhand, when an independent India was just three years old. The year he was born, India became a republic. So, in a way, he has grown with India.



Tom Alter – actor, theater artist, sports writer and commentator, and above all an intellectual – is the true personification of India.



But as much as he loves the country which his parents opted to make their home, he feels sad at things that happened during the last few decades in India.



“We have gotten into a phase of arrogance,” he told Saudi Gazette in an interview here Saturday evening as he rehearsed for the solo performance of the play “Maulana Azad”.



“It’s out of fashion now to say that one is Indian. Nobody says that I am an Indian. I have not heard a politician say that I am an Indian first. They say that I am from this state, from this caste, this community. Who is the last one who said that I am an Indian. If you say that you are an Indian you are going to lose the next election.



“When was the last time (Narendra) Modi said he is an Indian.”



Tom, who speaks impeccable Urdu, says that India needs reconciliation like the one Nelson Mandela did in South Africa.



“All the old problems of color, caste and religion have sprung up again in the last 10-15 years. Our politicians are using these problems to the hilt.

 I think that Nehru, Gandhi, (Sardar) Patel and Maulana (Azad) must be weeping that all those things that we wanted you to stop doing, that our Constitution declared illegal; you went back to them, most of them in the name of politics. You take any survey in any city now, you will find that it is divided into castes, sub-castes etc.”



Tom has harsh words for politicians: “It’s sad that politicians have used democracy for power. Democracy in their opinion is based on dividing people for votes. No one is looking at the bigger perspective that the world is much bigger than just your community.”



But the way out, in Tom’s mind, is the next election. “The people who say such things, we must beat them in the next election. It has very much happened in the past. In 2004, one particular party thought that they have got India by the neck, that party was thrown out. Now for 10 years another party has been doing what they liked. They are going to be thrown out.”



Tom does not mince words and he is as forthright in his views as he is in his dialogue deliveries. “The established parties are not going to win all the seats. It’s going to be spread all over the place because people are sick and tired. It’s going to be a hung parliament,” he says.

But doesn’t a hung parliament mean instability?



“Instability is much better than some hard-headed fanatics running the country,” comes the reply.



Tom, who has presented the solo performance of the play “Maulana Azad” in different parts of the world, feels it a great honor and a great challenge to be performing in Saudi Arabia where Maulana Azad was born.



But there has been a particular occasion when the play was banned in Gujarat. Recounting the incident, Tom says, “We were to perform at Malika Sarabhai’s theater. She got a notice from the police that the play was a threat to communal harmony. The reason why it was a threat was it promotes communal harmony. And certain people don’t want that. People said, ‘Tom don’t feel discouraged because if someone feels that its a threat it means it is very powerful’.”



Keeping the audience engaged for more than two hours with a solo performance must be a big challenge for any artist?



“I am very lucky that I have a very strong partner on stage, and that is the script. Dr. M. Sayeed Alam, scriptwriter and director of the play, researched this for five years based on personal observations, his own thoughts on history, interviews with people who knew Maulana.”



But is theater losing its appeal in the age of soap operas and reality shows? Tom doesn’t agree.



“I am doing six to seven shows every month, and the response we get is tremendous. If you give people good plays they will come and watch. The interest, the passion is there. Theaters in many languages in India is booming.



“In the last 10 years, when people got a little bit bored of television, they have come back to theater. The last 10-15 years have been very healthy for theater in India. I insist on playing original Indian plays.”



Tom has been addressed as the blue-eyed man of Bollywood. This is literally true, because as an Indian of Western descent he has azure eyes. But is this expression figuratively true? “I have gotten far more than I ever dreamt of. My eyes are blue, I can’t hide that fact. My appearance was not a hindrance. I got many roles because of my Western appearance. Its not a hindrance, it’s a help. I worked with all top Hindi film directors in the last 40 years. I am very proud that out of the 100 years of Indian cinema I have been there for 40 of them.”