India, Sept. 5 -- The eagle has landed - this was how actor Aahana S Kumra and her batchmates reacted when actor-theatre director Naseeruddin Shah walked onto their film school campus 20 years ago. To them, he was not merely a teacher but a standard-setter.

"For some reasons he always knew if we reached unprepared," Kumra recounts her college and theatre days. "And you could never prepare enough, because he was always over-prepared as a teacher. His favourite line was 'There are no bad actors, there are only lazy actors.'"

The teaching phase soon shifted from the classroom to the stage for both mentor and mentee.

In 2010, while Kumra was backstage at a play, "Naseer sir approached me with a George Bernard Shaw script. 'Take and read th...