The actor, who forever created a mark playing one of Samuel Beckett's most memorable characters, breathed his last on Saturday
Ramu Ramanathan (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 1, 2017)

"Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua ..." Every time, I met Tom Alter, I tried to goad him to utter these lines from the most famous - and perhaps the most incomprehensible - speech of the 20th century. Lucky, in Waiting for Godot. Tom was Lucky in Motley's production of the play.

The tramps, Vladimir and Estragon request Pozzo to make Lucky "think". And he does.

It's one of those "aha" moments in the theatre. Naseeruddin Shah, Benjamin Gilani and Akash Khurana pay heed in stoic silence; as Tom Alter utters Samuel Beckett's words.

In 1987, I mustered courage to meet him with the first one act-play I had penned. He stayed in the YMCA hostel behind Maratha Mandir. I read the play to him. He applied a dollop of warm butter on top of the toast until it melted. Then he nibbled that toast most immaculately as though eating were a scientific process. The reading, needless to state, was a fiasco. He told me, "It's obviously not a work of art. But with a bit of application you will get there as a playwright." He was kind enough to prod me in the direction of Akash Khurana, who directed that first play. Then he dismissed me from his presence.

That was not my first meeting. Being a general roadside lackey, I was watching a Kanga League game. There was a lazy legside flick, Ranjitsinhji meets Azhar. I said, waah. Someone behind me said, Wallah, kya baat hein. It was Tom Alter.

He continued to do that, even though he went into a self-imposed exile as a cricket chronicler, the day Jagmohan Dalmiya became president of the BCCI.

After Lucky, I have seen him on stage in an enthralling three-and-a-half hour production of Athol Fugard's Bloodknot. Enacted by Shiv Subramaniam and Tom Alter without an interval. In my view, one of the best pieces of theatre on Mumbai's stage. The production was spartan, and minimalist, and rough and tough. The political slant of the play, searing. The play is about two half-brothers, one black and one white.

With the help of Parvez Merchant, I gate-crashed into this production by operating lights. There were three reasons - I had no money to buy tickets for a show, the joy of seeing how Fugard made mockery of the apartheid South African Government's policy of segregated theatre audiences, and hearing those words.

Shiv organised the rehearsals in a school near Grant Road to match with Tom's busy schedule. During a stressful rehearsal, I was lazy in prompting the actors. I got a rap on the knuckles from Tom for not being "a prompt sort of prompter". I was furious. Instead of walking out in a huff, I decided to memorise the play, since I was instructed, "even a semi-decent light operator should know the text inside out". And so, other than Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, Bloodknot is one of the few plays I know by rote.

There are innumerable memories. A visit to the Jama Masjid in Delhi on a Sunday morning. Tom sat on the steps and recited "a few dastaans like Ghalib". He said, he always wanted to do it.

We met often, but he never saw a single play of mine, except for a Vaclav Havel piece because he admired "the man, the playwright, the politician." He was not impressed by my playwriting skills, even though I reminded him I was "getting there". He believed in "adab and lasaniyat", which meant the composite secular culture of Allah, Rama and Rasool.

When we met, we discussed his travel adventures, cricket, and Fulham. I suspect the only reason, he tolerated me was: Fulham and the fact that I had seen a game at Craven Cottage. (Tom Sir: you would be so thrilled to know, we tonked QPR 1-2 last night).

In Waiting for Godot, Lucky is allowed to "speak twice" during the entire play. In the second act this happens...

VLADIMIR: We met yesterday. (Silence). Do you not remember?

POZZO: I don't remember having met anyone yesterday. But tomorrow I won't remember having met anyone today. So don't count on me to enlighten you.

VLADIMIR: But—

POZZO: Enough! Up pig (to Lucky)!

VLADIMIR: You were bringing him to the fair to sell him. You spoke to us. He danced. He thought. You had your sight.

POZZO: As you please. Let me go! (Vladimir moves away.) Up! (Lucky gets up, gathers up his burdens).

VLADIMIR: Where do you go from here?

POZZO: On.
In this way Lucky moves on.
Exeunt Tom Alter.

(Ramu Ramanathan is a playwright, editor of PrintWeek, a Mumbaikar, and a Mirror columnist)