Teacher’s Day Special: Wind Beneath their Wings

‘Sometimes you don’t need teachers who teach you, you need ones who give you perception’
Abhishek Banerjee, actor
I entered Kirori Mal College (KMC) through the Extra-Curricular Audition (ECA) quota of theatre in 2003, which was the only way to get into a good college if you didn’t get good marks. I didn’t want to join any other college because I knew two things: one, that Amitabh Bachchan was an alumnus, and two, that my school senior, Bollywood actor Zeeshan Ayyub, was in The Players, guided professor Keval. I didn’t know anything about the society at the time but suffice it to say, my time with them was a period of creative bombardment. So many people think that a society that’s run in college must be amateurish. But that wasn’t The Players at all. Everyone in the society took their work seriously. Wherever I am in life today, it’s because I cracked that audition and entered the society.
Buy Now | Our best subscription plan now has a special price
Keval was more than a teacher — he was a guru, mentor, friend, father figure, and changed the way I approached performances and scripts forever. When I started college, I was too scared to join the science courses so he said, “Do you like stories? Why don’t you study literature?” And that’s how I landed up in his English classroom as well.
The attitude he groomed in his society proved very useful to me when I started working in films. It was one of thorough professionalism, because he could smell out the laziness in any performance or play, and you learned to be on your toes at all times. Even the guys who would set the lights or manage the production or bring food to us were treated with respect, equal to that of an actor. I remember a time when I had an actor on top of my shoulder in a play and I couldn’t take the weight so fell flat onstage, hurting my co-actor. Keval really scolded me and I took care afterwards to not risk the safety of any co-actor regardless of what happens. I’ve seen actors who go overboard in physical scenes where they’ll grip someone’s collar very hard or end up hurting them, not knowing how to act the moment out. Because of Keval’s attitude, it was not very difficult for me to make space for everyone in the film industry, and conversely, I was also easily vocal when I wasn’t getting the space I deserved.
He doesn’t know this, but I’m one of his biggest leners. Whenever I meet him, I just len. His words of wisdom have helped me for so long. When I met him at his retirement from KMC, I found he was less stricter and harsher. Sometimes you don’t need teachers who teach you, you need teachers who give you perception. That’s what Keval did for all of us.

‘Beyond the towering Socratic figure… an incredible English professor… he was central to my life’
Shaunak Sen, director
My association with Keval has been profound in multiple regers. I, like many others, took admission in Kirori Mal College (KMC) through the Extra-Curricular Activity Quota in 2005, through The Players, the dramatics society guided Keval. Above and beyond the towering Socratic figure that he was virtue of his character, he was really central to my life. He was this incredible English Literature professor — an aspect of his career that often gets clouded the presence of The Players — whose six-hour classes (on Godot and Dr Faustus) were legendary.
I’ve never felt awe for anybody, but that emotion is about as close to what I, and all of us, felt towards him. Those three years in The Players were almost like a fever dream, where his incredible rigour of both practice and thought inculcated an invisible barometer we all had to measure up to. Where else would you encounter a space where both students and teachers would sit together for hours and have long General Body Meetings because they wanted to be there? We would hammer at a script and everyone got to creatively opine on it. While I am not a sentimental at heart and hate it when figures are romanticised relentlessly, Keval sir is one person who calls for it. The reason everyone is eulogising him is that we are trying to articulate to people who don’t know him that it’s the end of an era.

‘Keval made me realise that my feelings are valid’
Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, actor
The areas of our personality that are sensitive can often become our superpowers too, and the process can be bewildering. Our choices can cage that spirit or liberate it. And it was Keval who enabled me to make one such liberating choice at the beginning of my theatre journey.
Geetika Vidya Ohyal and Keval Arora. (Credit: Chintamani Anil Kinjavadekar)
I had just moved from Haryana to Delhi, and in college at KMC started participating in theatre workshops conducted Keval. On the fifth day, for reasons I did not disclose to anyone, I decided to discontinue the workshop and leave the society. That evening, two seniors from my state bumped into me and ended up sharing their experiences with theatre and how it helped them at various junctures of their lives.
The next day I bumped into Keval, and our conversation soon turned towards a revelation. I told him that I felt I was unfit for acting because I was uncomfortable with touch. That man then spent several hours tenderly, affectionately and confidently engaging me into a conversation that made me walk through my entire life exploring experiences with touch – a talk that helped me understand all the experiences that I’d had in my life, and would have, in my career. His words eventually helped me face them with resilience.
Keval made me realise that my feelings are valid, that if something makes me uncomfortable in the world of creation, I must confidently and gently engage in a dialogue with myself and the others. I must move ahead on my path rather than running away at the first signs of discomfort. It was from Keval that I learned how to explore, create and enjoy boundaries in my work.
And those seniors from Haryana I bumped into? As might be obvious now, that encounter, too, was Keval’s doing.