``What is really fascinating me is that I will be handling actors. I think I can do it well, having had experience with different directors as an actor,'' said Naseer. However, it is young actors he would wish to train and direct and not stars.

He ruled out a suggestion that he should take up the challenge of giving a star like Amitabh Bachchan a new start as there had been instances of that kind in the West. ``It is impossible to do anything with Indian stars. In the West, actors start experimenting at a very early stage. Here the stars are trapped in their own images. What could be a challenge for Amitabh at this stage would be to play a villain and do it real well. But he will never like to discard his image of the angel. Our stars do not accept ageing and so they become mere parodies of their former selves,'' headded.

Naseer was speaking at a press conference on Saturday, organised by Natrang Pratishtan, a Delhi-based theatre resource centre.

The Pratishtan will be staging Samuel Becket's Waiting for Godot with Naseeruddin Shah and Benjamin Gilani in the lead roles. The play will be held at Shri Ram Centre on November 5 to raise funds for the Pratishtan.Nemichand Jain, founder of Natrang Pratishtan, expressed happiness that Naseer who had been his student at the National School of Drama (NSD) was here to help out for the cause of theatre.

Waiting for Godot, a Motely (Bombay) production directed by Gilani, is running in its 20th year. ``This is one role I have not tired of. Over the years the performance has evolved and ripened. It has not rotted,'' said Naseer.

Lamenting over the lack of good new plays in Hindi, Naseer said he was now directing an original Indian play in English. ``It is essentially a two-actress play with a Parsi backdrop Mahapanoo Kotwal and Ratna Shah are acting in it. The play is amixture of languages and I do not consider English to be a foreign language. In fact, urban theatre has to find a new language which will be a mix of English, Hindi and Urdu. The kind of language we speak.''

He has also started work on a film. Once again, he will not be acting in it. He decided to direct because he felt he has been stagnating as an actor. ``As an actor, I do not think I have done any film to be really proud of. People tell me that I was at my best in Sparsh and that was done 20 years ago. But I also want to call the shots,'' he adds laughing.

When asked who were the directors who handled him well, Naseer is quick to reel out three names: `` Shekhar Kapoor, Sai Paranjpe and Gulzar. And in this order. In theatre, the director who was in complete control was Satyadev Dube. Even today I would blindly do what he asked of me as an actor.''

Naseer said that his contribution to theatre has been minimal but he admired those who had put in their all for it but was also anxious that theatre stilldepended on patronage. The actor also felt that educated persons had to come to theatre as actors if the scenario was to change for the better.When asked the inevitable about his dancing-around-the-trees roles in commercial films, he said: ``For that you have to leave your brains home. I am afraid I could not do them as well as I wanted to. To play the romantic Hindi film hero, one must arrest one's growth at the age of 18 when it's all bravado and innocence.

Kirti Jain, a member of Natrang, said the Pratishtan would bring out a special brochure for Waiting for Godot which would include rare material drawn from its archives on the theatre performances of Naseer.