Teacher’s Day: The stage and its invaluable teachings
There is certainly an innate charm to the stage. For many artistes, theatre was their first teacher. It is also the spotlight that separates them from the ers and has helped them ne their skills. For umerous artistes, eacher’s Day is not st a reason to elebrate their urus, but also the tage. “Theatre is a microcosm of life. t is the school of umanities,” says rector Quasar damsee, who has med plays like Every liant Thing and the TA nominated So Many Socks. “I’m a better person, because of theatre,” he quips. Moreover, despite the pandemic, many actors tried to rekindle that very relationship with the stage, online. Rasika Dugal’s online play, Admission, invoked immense interest from theatre goers. “It was very new. Because of that, it became limiting and also liberating in many ways,” says the actor, adding, “I’ve never spent so much time on Zoom. You need a different kind of energy to be able to perform online.”
For actor Danish Husain, too, theatre played an important role in shaping his understanding of the craft. “Theatre gave me a voice, emboldened me to delineate myself from the crowd,” says the Dhobi Ghat (2010) and Ankhon Dekhi (2013) actor.
Many artistes consider themselves lucky that thespians are always there to guide them. Padamsee says, “In college I met Rehaan Engineer, and a lot of my foundation was thanks to him. I worked with my father (Alyque Padamsee; directoractor) a little bit. And that was incredible.” Dugal says, “Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) sir was my teacher at NSD. Much of what I know today as an actor is because of some very fundamental things that he taught me while I was at the institute.” Husain considers himself lucky to have been taken under the mentorship of Habib Tanvir. “I’m grateful to Barry John, MS Sathyu, Rajinder Nath, Sabina Mehta Jaitley, MK Raina, Naseeruddin Shah and
Sunil Shanbag.”