The American Indians

The American Indians

Today I read about the untimely death of Indian actor Tom Alter at age 67. He had died of skin cancer. He likely developed this skin cancer in part due to the abundant sun exposure in India. You see, he was a fair skinned Caucasian.

Mr. Alter was the grandson of a missionary who had come to British India in 1916 from Ohio in the United States. Mr. Alter's grandfather had a son who was born in the city of Sialkot which is in present day Pakistan. When the Indian sub- continent was partitioned in 1947, the elder Alter remained in what is now Pakistan, but his son (Tom's father) had become a missionary in the city of Mussorie in India.

The partition of the Indian sub-continent by the British split many families including those of my parents. I however never imagined that it also would affect an American family living in India.

Mr. Tom Alter was born to his missionary father in Mussorie in India in 1950. His grandfather remained a missionary in Pakistan, and the young Tom Alter grew up in the Indian state of Uttar Pardesh. He was fluent in Hindi and Urdu. When it was time to go to college, he was sent to Yale university in the United States.

He however did not like Yale, and left after a year and came back to India. After trying a few different things, he fell in love with an Indian movie starring the Indian super hero of those days, Rajesh Khanna and decided to become a movie actor.

I can imagine that it must have been difficult for a Caucasian man to make it into Indian movies in the 1970’s, but Tom Alter did. Some of his roles portrayed him as a British man speaking poor and broken Hindi. Interestingly he himself was very fluent in both Hindi and Urdu, and even well versed in Urdu poetry.

He did succeed and eventually worked in over 300 movies including a movie with his idol Rajesh Khanna. Also, incongruously for a man of American origins, he became a great fan of the game of cricket and even became a correspondent for a cricketing news organization. He was eventually given the fourth highest civilian national award of India, the Padma Shri and was much loved in India. He once said in an interview that he hates being called an ‘angrez’ (white man). He said he was Hindustani (Indian) and proud of it.

In this day and age, it is more common to see immigrants to the United States rather than the other way around. I myself am an immigrant. While growing up in Nigeria, two of my closest friends were American brothers. Their father had moved to West Africa in the 1960's, but it is generally rare to see an American who has made another country home. However, recently I met another.

I work as a doctor in a small town in North Carolina. On one recent day in the clinic, a man in his late sixties came in as a new patient. He had just moved to our small town to live close to one of his daughters who lives here.

As part of my history, I asked what he did for a living? He had been a teacher, he told me and he had just retired. Where did you teach I ask? ‘India’, he replies. I was taken aback. You mean the country of India? Yes indeed, he replied.

This made me very interested and I asked him for more details. He told me that as a young couple both him and his wife had been interested in missionary work. They left America in the 1980’s and first lived in North Africa for a few years. Their first child was born there. They then moved to India. They moved between different cities in India. Their second child was born in the Indian city of Patna.

I found this very interesting as my parents were originally from the Patna area of North Eastern India. He lived with his family in India for 28 years. His daughters grew up there. He came back to America to take care of his elderly father. The family was initially split as his wife tried to stay on in India with his children.

After four years, his wife also moved back. One daughter had gotten married and moved to my small town. My patient moved here after his father died. He found a job here and became my patient. Both him and his wife are some of the most humble and nicest people I have ever met.

When I decided to write this essay, I titled it ‘The American Indians’, even though this has nothing to do with Native Americans who are also called by that name. I think it is the people above who more accurately fit this title

Tom Alter