Give him a drama with a social issue at its heart and you can count on Ayushmann Khurrana to throw his might behind it. His penchant to tell relevant stories aside, the actor says that the decision to front Anubhav Sinha's Article 15 — that takes on the rampant caste discrimination in India — stemmed from a personal space. Khurrana recounts how an incident during his junior college days brought him face-to-face with the harsh impact of caste divide.

"I remember, the topper in my class secured a seat in one of the engineering colleges in Chandigarh. That was when my batch mates realised that he belonged to the reserved category. [The revelation] impacted the guy deeply because he did not want his caste to be known; he went into depression. This incident shows that it is deep-rooted in our society, and people develop complexes. We need to treat everybody at par," says the actor, who also supports an NGO in Delhi that provides a dignified and alternative livelihood to women ragpickers.