Playwriting, bookwriting, scriptwriting; single day's work for Anuvab Patel

His mornings begin with penning a play, in the afternoon he switches to writing a book and in the evening he concentrates on scriptwriting.

This is how Anuvab Pal, an internationally-acclaimed playwright, divides his time during a day as he loves to transverse the boundaries of various mediums.

He has translated two of his own English plays Loins of Punjab Presents and The President is Coming for the celluloid.

The Konkona Sen starrer hit satirical film The President Is Coming (2009) has also been published as a novel.

A Kolkata boy, Anuvab's another play 1-888-Dial-India' was released in the form of a story book recently at the Oxford Bookstore here.

While Chaos Theory, staged at the Airtel Lifestage Festival here, will also be made into a novel next year.

"I enjoy juggling with various mediums and so I divide my time of the day into three parts. It energises me creatively as I get to work for three stories on a single day," Anuvab, who now lives in Mumbai, told PTI here.

He has also written a book on the Bollywood film Disco Dancer.

So while thinking of a story idea, which medium comes first for him - theatre, books or films?

"The first and foremost thing is the story. Depending on what the medium allows me to do, I chose. Each medium has its own limitations and scope. What theatre doesn't give me, films do. And sometimes some stories can also be retold through a book," said the internationally renowned playwright.

Anuvab's oeuvre have been staged all across India and also abroad in cities like New York, Toronto, Washington and Los Angeles.

When asked why he has chosen to transverse different mediums, he said that there are many stories to be told through cinema which is not possible in theatre, where there is no camera, a fixed geographical location and a live setting.

"In plays the dialogues are very important but you cannot travel like the way you can do with films. However, you cannot adapt every play into a film as the audience expectations are different from each medium."

Lamenting that the habit of reading plays is dead in India, Anuvab said that his characters from drama become immortal as there are readers for paperback novels in urban India.

The multi-talented man, who also does stand-up comedian job sometimes, is now working on a Bollywood film's script and a play on corruption.

The film which will be directed by well-known ad filmmaker Ram Madhvani is a romantic comedy based on the life of chefs.

"It will also talk about the new India and its fascination with different kinds of food," he said adding that this film will be bigger and more commercial than his past big screen ventures.

"Of all mediums, cinema reaches to the maximum audience," said the writer, most of whose works reflect contemporary India.