Dalip Tahil began to appear on stage while at Sherwood College, Nainital, at the age of 10. Dalip's participation over the years in choir, elocution competitions, Nativity plays, and formal and informal concerts gave him a platform to be cast in principal parts which won him, during his senior years at school, the prestigious Kendall Cup for the best actor two years in succession, first as Joseph in the play My Three Angels and again as Macbeth in Shakespeare's Macbeth. He was declared the best actor for a record third time in 1969, his final year at Sherwood College.