Love Bard

When Bernardo met Dawesar in the Big Apple a year ago and proposed the idea,the writer,whose books Family Values,That Summer in Paris and Babyji have entered bestseller lists across the world,was readily impressed. “I liked the idea,especially because a film is a collaborative effort. It forces one to create within constraints and that brings out a different aspect of creativity from writing a novel,” she says.

What she wasn’t prepared for was how writing a screenplay would challenge and change her imagination. “I had to think visually,unlike while writing a novel. Everything had to be conveyed through dialogue for strong visuals. This shift in perspective took a lot of time,” she recalls,adding that her script was ready by the end of the summer of 2010. For her part,she isn’t a “particularly systematic film viewer,especially of Bollywood cinema” but writing for Love and the Cities made her realise that “being involved in creating something is more interesting than being a consumer”.

Dawesar is currently also working on a new book that merges fiction and non-fiction,but she says she is ready for different things now. “I will never stop writing novels,but I am open to more screenplays,” she says.