'I dared myself to be schooled by the teacherest of teachers': Mira Sethi pays tribute to Zia Mohyeddin

You don't need a specific day to celebrate your mentors. Such is the case for Mira Sethi who took to Instagram to appreciate actor Zia Mohyeddin and his way of teaching her.

On Thursday, the actor shared fond memories of Mohyeddin giving positive remarks and how students don't often get to hear them. "When you do, your heart blooms and you contemplate a jump from the highest building at the mad maniacal joy of having received a compliment from Zia Mohyeddin. I walked into his mandir because I wanted to break myself down. I wanted to look at the rotten tics I’d picked up from TV, and discard them. I wanted to strip down my own inhibitions, and have someone scowl, from a near distance, at my incompetence."

Sethi wrote that she dared herself to be "schooled by the teacherest of teachers" and that it is not easy working with Mohyeddin. "That scowl — a very special grimace that wonders at your existence —can destroy those faint of heart. But that’s the thing with actors: we want to please. Oh yes we do... And so it began. An audition — a successful one (shab-sh!) — followed by three months of rehearsal. And here’s what I will say. The reason Zia sb, at 90, is healthy, alert, armed with the full capacity of his talent, is because HE LOVES WHAT HE DOES. Adores it. Is consumed by it."

For the Paristan actor, Mohyeddin is alert to every micro inflection, be it the less-than-perfect pronunciation and how he'd make everyone do it 112 times till they get it right.

"Zia sahab is moved by Art. He is not moved by people. (Unless that person is a vessel for the Art…)" she wrote while also promoting his production of Romeo and Juliet at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) in Karachi from June 17 till June 26.

Mohyeddin has worked as an actor in many projects including Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Behold a Pale Horse (1964), Immaculate Conception (1992) and more. He and Sethi worked together for the Urdu adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear three years ago.

Then too Sethi described her experience of working with Mohyeddin. She called it "punishing, demanding, exhilarating" — but also "the experience of a lifetime."