I first met Tom Alter in the early 1990s. I was casting for Gurcharan Das's British Raj play, Larins Sahib, set in 1857, about the life of Brigadier General Henry Lawrence and his love for Maharaja Ranjit Singh's widow Rani Jindan Kaur. The crucial lead needed to be a foreigner who could also seamlessly be Indian. Only one man in India could play that part -- Thomas Beach Alter. I also realised that if he said no, I wouldn't be able to do the play.