Contacting Tom Alter required trying to reach him on his land line in Mumbai or sending him an email first. If there was no word, you contacted his son Jamie, who would let you know that he was out of town, on a shoot or something related to theatre or art or Urdu poetry and of course, that meant he was off the grid. Whatever small slice of the grid he bothered with that is, having acquired a retro grade of fame for not owning a mobile phone.
Eventually, it didn't matter - if you wanted to reach him, he could be reached and when he was reached, you got an answer. Usually, of course, yes, happy to write. And tell me...
I'd known Tom for almost as long as I'd been a journalist, working with him as researcher for a DD sports programme called Sportlight. He was the anchor of a collection of sports clips gathered from around the world and showed to an Indian audience who craved for world class sport on TV. (Yes, generations survived on such morsels).
Our interaction was over phone calls and, what I now automatically think of as emails but surely must have been faxes or typewritten sheets of paper. I have no memory of what or how I was researching, but I got a nice stipend. Plus, the satisfaction of having people at home gleefully astonished when it was confirmed that the somewhat familiar voice of the "Tom" calling to leave a message was Tom Alter the film actor.
I formally met him as one one of the organisers of India's first triathlon held off Juhu beach, along with swimmer Anita Sood and model Milind Soman. As Mid-Day staffers, Tom treated us like colleagues - he had written for Sportsweek magazine, which had shut down by then. He was never rushed, always sociable and courteous, with an innate ability to radiate a good cheer wherever he went and very far removed from the adjective filmi.
No matter the trajectory of his career in film and theatre, Tom continued to write about sport because he loved sport and sports people madly. He had been an active sportsman when young, a long-distance runner who played cricket, football, basketball and hockey among other things. His passion for sport showed in how he wrote about it. Like he felt - lyrical, a romantic at heart, a seeker of a time that he thought of as older, nobler and somehow sweeter. Maybe it was his reaction to a world changing around him. To hold onto to what was a belonging. Maybe it happens to all of us - I can see it now.
For us sports hacks, Tom was a fellow traveler. Whenever we would meet - intermittently at airports or some event, we would talk about the sporting world, the writing about the sporting world, the world at large. He could be, at one go, distressed, invigorated, hopeful, optimistic. Once at a sponsor function in some Delhi five-star hotel, I saw him step onto the stage swishing around a black cloak - enveloped by phantasmagorical smoke - uttering some bizarre lines which launched something.
When it was done, he raced into the lobby, black cloak waving behind him and sat down rolling his eyes saying, "arre karna padta hai, karna padta hai." (Well you've got to do these things). Within the next two minutes, he had ordered coffee and food, and swept away my aunt - who had come to pick me up - with his Urdu erudition. Then we embarked on a serious discussion about the cricket world, and Chappell vs. Ganguly, with Tom shaking his head at the crassness of it all, trying to fathom the core personalities at work.
It was a Tom thing. Like other acts of random generosity. More than ten years ago, he walked into a book reading/launch for John Wright's Indian Summers in Mumbai. Wright was supposed to be the main attraction of the event but had been held back by commentary duties in Jaipur for the 2006 Champions Trophy. A smattering of people were coming into Crossword book shop, hoping to hear the former India coach reveal secrets and were about to be disappointed. Who wanted to listen to the publisher and two journalists (one ghost, aka me and one eminence gris in ESPNcricinfo editor Sambit Bal) talk about the book?
We dragged Tom to the side and begged him to add some star value to the evening by doing a reading. Initially startled and bemused, Tom manfully took to the crease, ever the friend, always the professional. It was like he was always meant to be on the podium, reading from the book as if he'd written it himself. The crowd was charmed, the evening was sparkling and at the end of the phone line in Jaipur, Wright was utterly grateful.
When he found out Tom had saved the day, he told me he had been interviewed by Tom ages ago, as New Zealand captain and had never enjoyed an interview so much. After the two men had finished speaking, Tom did one of his things: thanked me for that conversation he'd been able to have on the phone. It was logic-defying.
Over the last few years, we would exchange emails over whether he could write or not about this or that. He was one of the first people ESPN.in thought of when we were looking for a hardcore sports fan to take part in our 20 Greatest Moments in Indian Sport survey. His answers were leaned heavily on the yesteryears - he had singled out Wilson Jones, Jaidip Mukherjea in the Davis Cup, Ramanathan Krishnan, Kashaba Jadhav, Milkha Singh, the 1971 Test wins in the West Indies and England, but he was fan enough to also doff his hat to Abhinav Bindra, Saina Nehwal, Sushil Kumar and the other moderns.
Whenever we'd meet and exchange notes about cricket, he would often shake his head and say, in Marathi, "gela, gela" (it's gone, it's gone). This was in the post-Tendulkar years, but Tom wasn't talking about Tendulkar alone. A few moments later, we would be talking about a stunning performance, a break-out debutant, and he would say, "Dekh lo! Ghazab hai!" (Look at it. What a marvel.)
For a man who remained consciously off the grid, I have been thinking about the many people who called each other to talk about Tom, who wrote messages on social media, and were surprised to find themselves in tears when they realise he's gone. It is Tom's triumph. As one of its good men, he always told us the world was a better place than we thought it was. Dekh lo, ghazab hai.