A Good play is not made in a day, month, or sometimes, a year. It gestates in the mind, encroaching on all its corners, crumbling one instant and coming together the next, before it metamorphoses into a script. Rehearsals spanning months then sand down the rough edges, and the play is ready for curtain-up. It is from this point, though, that its real journey begins; the play settling down with each show, before finally coming into its own.

The trajectory of the play Bhima is no different. Up until 2011, the second Pandava was no more than a mythological character to Vivek Vijayakumaran. A dramatised reading from Ashok Malhotra's Child Man, however, helped the Bengaluru-based theatre practitioner see Bhima in a new light. "The book revealed his vulnerable side. Here was a character known for his physical prowess, who was weighed down by his sense of loyalty. Capable of loving both, Draupadi, who belonged in the palaces, and Hidimbi, who lived in the forest, he goes through immense pain to honour his mother's wish to keep Hidimbi away from the royal life," says Vijayakumaran about how the seeds for his META Award-winning production were sown. Bhima will be staged for the first time in Mumbai this Sunday.