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 reason, he always knew if we were unprepared. 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'," she tells us. The lessons soon moved from the classroom to the stage. In 2010, while Kumra was backstage during a play, Shah approached her with a script by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. "'Take and read this,' he said. That was the day I finally started acting in a play," she shares. The following year, Kumra performed in By George at Mumbai's National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) under his direction. The performance also earned her a painting from Shah and his wife, actor Ratna Pathak Shah. Kumra says his students also valued his sharp understanding of the industry and its calculated realities. "He understands that young actors rarely get second chances. If you say no to a producer, you're replaced. He knows producers have inflated egos; a lost chance is often lost forever," she says. On a lighter note, she shares that Shah fondly calls her a "feisty cat". When aspiring actors ask, "Naseer sir ke saath kaise kaam kar sakte hain?" Kumra has only one answer: "Koi tareeka hai hi nahin unke saath kaam kar paane ka. It's sheer good luck."...