How does a schoolteacher of American descent end up in Bollywood? In Tom Alter?s case, the story and performances of Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore in Aradhana is the answer. Before Aradhana, Alter, the son of American missionaries, had been happy teaching children at a mission school in the small town of Jagadhri in Haryana. After the movie, he headed to the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune. What followed was a unique career path for the blue-eyed sahib (as Alter came to be known), embracing everything from Satyajit Ray?s Shatranj Ke Khiladi to roles in Bheja Fry, Mangal Pandey and Veer-Zaara, all thanks to Alter?s perfect Hindi.