Vijaya Mehta: Remembering the director who created generations of actors

In 1953, a young woman played Desdemona in a college production of Othello in Mumbai. Legendary theatre director, Ebrahim Alkazi, who was in the audience later invited her to join his theatre group. That young woman was Vijaya Mehta, and it marked the beginning of a bond with theatre that lasted a lifetime. She passed away on June 30 at the age of 91.Born Vijaya Jaywant in Vadodara on November 4, 1934, to parents who were members of the Theosophical Society, she grew up surrounded by the world of Indian cinema and yet remained untouched by its allure. Nalini Jaywant and Shobhna Samarth were her aunts. Nutan and Tanuja were her cousins. Through her first marriage to Harin Khote, Durga Khote was her mother-in-law. Mainstream cinema was practically a family inheritance.

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