Woodstock School Alumni Magazine Vol CIV, 2011

Distinguished Alumni 2011
J. Gabriel
Campbell ’65
Dr. James Gabriel
Campbell has
spent almost his
whole life in the
Himalaya. Born
at Landour Community
Hospital,
Mussoorie, he followed
his father, uncle and aunts in attending
Woodstock from Upper Kindergarten to graduation
(with a couple of years in the US). His
winter family home was in Jalandhar, Punjab.
Gabriel has a Ph.D. and M.Phil in Anthropology,
Religion and South Asian Studies from Columbia
University and Union Theological Seminary,
New York (With Distinction) and an M.A. and
B.A. from Wesleyan University, Connecticut
in Anthropology and History and Religion
(magna cum laude). For these degrees he spent
two separate years of field research living in
villages of Himachal Pradesh and Jumla, Nepal.
He speaks Nepali, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi and
has studied French, Tibetan and Sanskrit. He has
published six monographs and books and over
100 articles and papers.
Following five years as the executive head of
the US Education Foundation in Nepal (Fulbright
Program) and director of operations for
Mountain Travel Nepal, Gabriel’s career has
focused on natural resource management and
local livelihood improvement in a number of
countries in the Himalaya. He has worked with
international development agencies, including
USAID, United Nations, the World Bank and
NGOs, especially The Mountain Institute, as a
specialist in the human dimensions of development
and in management roles. As Director
General of ICIMOD - the International Centre
for Integrated Mountain Development - for over
seven years, Gabriel supervised a staff of 150,
built an international headquarters and worked
with countries throughout the Himalaya to increase
cooperation and knowledge sharing. In
this role he was given a number of awards by the
countries of the region, international agencies,
and several large private sector IT companies.
Among his accomplishments, Gabriel is credited
with being instrumental in:
• establishing Community Forestry in Nepal
and reversing deforestation in the hills and
mountains of that country (this is now a
global model of success);
• establishing community based national
parks around Mt. Everest and Mt. Makalu -
Qomolangma National Nature Preserve in
Tibet, China and Makalu-Barun National
Park and Conservation Area in eastern
Nepal;
• designing Eco-development programs for
7 Project Tiger national parks in India that
have been subsequently expanded to other
park areas;
• pioneering scholarship on shamanism in
far Western Nepal, community institutions
for natural resource management, validity
of social science survey methods and
methodology, monitoring systems for
forestry in India and tenurial aspects of
development; and eco-tourism in Sikkim;
• building regional cooperation between
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China,
India, Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan in a
number of areas such as: flood forecasting,
biodiversity conservation, GIS and glacial
lake mapping, disaster preparedness,
watershed management and agricultural
development, eco-tourism, climate change
research and adaptation strategies, Himalayan
bee development, promoting gender equality,
and increasing social inclusion.
Gabriel lives mostly in Nepal with his wife, Dr.
Lynn Bennett, also an anthropologist known for
her pioneering work on women and social inclusion
in the World Bank. He is active in WOSA
meetings in Nepal, and when possible, the US
and was happy to help host the Woodstock Jazz
Band who visited Kathmandu for Jazzmandu
in October 2010. He was the Commencement
Speaker at Woodstock for the class of ‘06.
Tom Alter ’68
Tom Alter has been a
well-known face to Indian
movie-goers for more
than three decades. Apart
from acting in Hindi films,
Tom Alter has exhibited
talent in theatre, in sports
and in literature.
Quadrangle - 25
Tom Alter, the son and
grandson of American Presbyterian missionaries,
grew up in north India in the towns of Rajpur
and Mussoorie. As a child, he studied Hindi and
Urdu and, consequently, was referred to as the
‘blue-eyed sahib with the impeccable Hindi.’
After studying in Woodstock School from 1st to
12th Grade and graduating in 1968, Tom worked
as a sports teacher at St. Thomas School in Jagadhri,
Haryana and came back to the Woodstock
as staff for about two years.
In the early 1970s Tom fell in love with the movies
(after watching the classic film Aaradhna)
which led Tom to enrol in the prestigious Film
and Television Institute of India (FTII), where
he studied with the likes of Naseeruddin Shah,
Shabana Azmi, and other stalwarts of cinema.
Having been featured in almost 100 films, Tom
Alter has worked with noted filmmakers such
as Satyajit Ray, V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor,
Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Manmohan Desai,
Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Manoj Kumar and Ismail
Merchant. He has played many significant roles
in his career and has had the privilege of working
with the best in Hindi cinema and Hollywood.
No actor in Hindi cinema has acted in as broad
a range of movies.
In addition to acting, Alter has also ventured into
direction: he directed a one-shot episode for the
short-lived series ‘Yule Love Stories’ in the mid-
1990s. He also worked on the small screen in
a number of popular serials: Junoon which ran
for five years and won him rave reviews, Zabaan
Sambhalke, Ghutan and a talk show Mere Ghar
Aana Zindagi are some of the popular shows
Tom has been part of. Tom Alter also made his
mark in theatre. Significant productions include
William Dalrymple’s ‘City of Djinns’ where he
shared a stage with the legend Zohra Sehgal. A
solo play Maulana, based on the life and vision
of freedom fighter Maulana Azad, is also running
to rave reviews in India and abroad.
Cricket was more than a passion for Tom Alter.
From the late 1980s to the early 1990s Tom was
a sports journalist. He continues to play cricket
for a film industry team MCC (Match Cut Club),
with Naseeruddin Shah, Aamir Khan and Nana
Patekar among others. He still writes on cricket
for a number of national and international publications.
At the WOSA 100 celebrations, Tom
captained a team of alumni in a closefought
match against the team led by
former staff member Brij Lal. Tom
Alter has also written three books,
one non-fiction and two fiction: The
Longest Race, Rerun at Rialto, The
Best in the World.
In 2008 Tom Alter was awarded the
prestigious Padma Shree (one of
India’s highest public honours) by the Indian
government in recognition for his services to
the field of arts and cinema. Tom Alter stands
out in every part of his professional life. In
Woodstock, as a student, as a staff member and
as a parent, Tom Alter has been a proactive,
keen and involved alumnus, an integral part of
the Woodstock heritage.