Something of the controlled power and grace that flows in the proscenium spectacles he mounts is there in the man too. Leonine of manner and voice, but disarming in speech, Ratan Thiyam, the world-renowned theatre director from Manipur, who won the Outlook SpeakOut Award for Best Artist, reminisces about his life’s journey—an artist’s biography—in a conversation with Sunil Menon and Sreevalsan Thiyyadi: