3 min readPuneJul 1, 2026 11:04 AM IST In 1953, Wilson College in Mumbai staged William Shakespeare’s Othello and, among the audience was a brave young actor-director who would become a legend in Indian theatre, Ebrahim Alkazi. As he watched Othello, Alkazi’s keen eye picked out Desdemona, the heroine who encapsulates a woman’s tragedy as she pleads with her jealous and murderous husband in her dying moments, “Banish me, my lord, but kill me not”. Alkazi was mesmerised, and invited “Desdemona” to join his ensemble, Theatre Group, which was, at the time, creating the most powerful plays in Mumbai, The actor was Vijaya Jaywant, a final-year student at Wilson College. Alkazi and the doyen of Parsi theatre, Adi Pherozeshah Marzban, she would hone her immense talent and set her on a course that would transform not only her oeuvre but also theatre in Maharashtra. Jaywant is better known as Vijaya Mehta. Theatre had brought her and Farrokh Mehta, credited as one of the forces of Mumbai’s English theatre culture, together. Vijaya, famously meticulous and disciplined, …