Roshan Mathew’s play, Bye Bye Bypass, is a journey through childhood, family, and lost homes
Imagine a grand ancestral home where three generations once lived, now set to be torn down for a new bypass road. When a bunch of cousins refuse to let it go, they begin to uncover forgotten stories, buried secrets, and moments that shaped their family’s past, reminding us that a home is far more than bricks and walls, but the people and memories within.
Bye Bye Bypass: Roshan Mathew’s tribute to childhood and home
Actor Roshan Mathew’s sophomore Malayalam play Bye Bye Bypass (the first one being A Very Normal Family) takes audiences on a nostalgic trip down the memory lane.
Throwing light on the play’s inception, Roshan tells Indulge, “The seed of it was a story I had lived with for a very long time and it was something deeply personal that I carried within me. Whenever I shared it, whether with a few close friends or at a storytelling festival, the response was always the same, people connected to it. It felt universally relatable. That kind of resonance told me there was something more to this story, something that deserved to grow beyond just being told casually. I just didn’t know what form that would take yet.”
He adds, “At the same time, among our group, people who love theatre just as much as we love making films, we had been talking for a while about returning to the stage. It had been years since we’d done theatre, and we all knew that to commit to something as demanding as that, we needed a singular idea that excited everyone. We tossed around a lot of concepts, but nothing quite stuck."
"Then one day, it hit me. This story, the one I had been carrying, maybe it was time to share it with the group. I brought it to them, curious to see how they would respond. And the reaction was immediate. It resonated, just like before. Because it’s about home! It’s about childhood! Two things that are the foundations of our lives and nearly universal experiences. And we were having this conversation at a time when stories of children losing their homes were everywhere, on the news, across social media. We were already emotionally tuned in to the themes at the heart of the story. That timing added urgency and relevance.”
Bye Bye Bypass features a 10-member ensemble and co-writers Shruti Ramachandran, screenwriter and creative director Francis Thomas, along with Darshana Rajendran, Santhy Balachandran, Sanjay Menon, Syamprakash MS, Aswathy Manoharan, Rajesh Madhavan, and others.
When asked how the team came together, Roshan explains, “Once the group got involved, something beautiful happened. My single story sparked memories and emotions in everyone else. Suddenly, we weren’t working with just one story; but we had a rich collection of them. Everyone brought their own pieces to the table, and it became clear we had something truly powerful to build from. And that’s how we began.”
Sharing the personal anecdote behind the play, Roshan says, “You know, I usually prefer not to make things too personal. Some personal elements are there, sure, but even in the play, we chose to fictionalise a lot. That said, the core of the story is drawn from something very real. What happened was that a bypass road was being constructed, and as part of that, the house where my grandparents lived, my grandmother's home, had to be demolished. I was a child at the time. And I had spent a large part of my childhood in that house. It was a place that meant safety, familiarity and permanence.”
"So when the demolition finally happened, it was such an absurd thing for a child to try to understand. Because home, especially for a child, represents something unshakable. It is where you feel safe. It’s supposed to be the one thing that doesn’t change. And then, suddenly, it was gone. And the irony was even harder to grasp: the road that took my home away is now the same road I travel on to return home. That contradiction still stays with me. How do you make sense of that as a kid? That a road, which is supposed to take you home, can also be the very thing that takes your home away? It just didn’t make sense. And maybe that’s why the story stayed with me all these years.”
Rs 499 onwards. September 13, 3 pm
At Prestige Centre for Performing Arts, Konanakunte Cross, Bengaluru
For more updates, join/follow our
https://www.whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vb677uz60eBXiDYheb0n