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Tom Alter’s book reading was a pleasant mix of observations and anecdotes
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A couple of evenings ago, Tom Alter did a reading from three of his books at Asian Woman, which sounds like a book shop but is actually a spa off Sarjapura Road. Alter read from three of his books: “Rerun at Rialto”, “The Longest Ra
ce” and “The Best in The World – India’s Ten Greatest World Cup Matches; he kept the readings short, talking animatedly in between about cricket, running and films.
Alter started the reading with a piece about the legendary World Cup match at Tunbridge, Wells, in which Kapil Dev batted 175 not out, then the highest individual score in an ODI, taking India from dismal 17/5 to victory. The extract was soon forgotten in the magic of Alter’s stories about that match and about cricketers, including the “great G.R.Vishwanath”, and Vishwanath Sadanand, who was “ not like the other cricketers of Bangalore, whose expressions never changed”. He made a striking point about Kapil Dev being important for the nation because he proved that one did not have to be wealthy or from the city in order to play excellent cricket.
The audience appeared to be happy that it wasn’t a formal reading and that Alter was digressing from the reading to talk, because what he said and how he said it was fascinating! With the reading from “Rerun at Rialto”, a mystery about a woman who disappears during a rerun of “Mughal-e-Azam” the audience was transported to the world of films and acting. Later in the evening, asked about the connection between creativity and reality, Alter said that it is deep and that what he, and every artists does, is “take one’s own passions and give them to strangers”. It was here that the audience learnt that Alter’s “one special film” is “Anand” and his special song, “Kahin door jab din dhal jaaye”.
And then we learnt that in June 1996, Alter ran the full marathon – 42.195 kms – between Mussoorie and Dhanaulti and that “The Last Race” is a fable in which he hoped to depict “what is wrong with Indian sports”, adding “no one loves Indian sports more than I do”. He used several examples to show that track and field events have become slower in the 47 years since Milkha Singh and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa. The evening lengthened into night, but no one complained, lulled into pleasant thoughtfulness by the many things that Tom Alter spoke of and many lingered on when it came to an end with Alter reciting an Urdu poem.
KALA KRISHNAN RAMESH
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