Despite her maiden movie winning laurels left, right and center, Pubali Chaudhuri's entry into the glitzy world of Bollywood seems to have gone below the celebrity-hungry media radar.

Nevertheless, the writer, who etched out for us the lovable characters of the absolutely awesome blockbuster Rock On, is thrilled with the success and is looking to continue her work of scripting memorable and original tales for a formulae-fixated Bollywood.

Originally from Kolkata, Pubali graduated in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University and also boasts of a post-graduate diploma in Mass Communication.

"I knew I wanted to write, but back then the obvious career choice was print media that would enable me to carry on writing," she says.

After freelancing with some newspapers, she was hired by Times Internet division as a content writer but soon got tired of the glorified DTP operator job and decided to try her hand at something totally different.

The free-spirited Pubali consequently went into event management and organised a 12-hour rock concert on World AIDS Day in Kolkata. After shuttling between various cities, including Hyderabad, Pubali succumbed to the call of the motherland and took on a job as a production assistant with an ad film production house in Kolkata.

"This was my first hands-on experience with film, and I found it really exciting. For the first time, I didn't have Monday morning blues going to work!" chirps Pubali.

A couple of passing years saw her getting a hang of production work and eventually she decided to take the plunge by moving to Mumbai. What followed was two months of freelancing, dabbling in ad films and studying screenplay writing at the prestigious FTII.

While the hard work and the search for that something special continued, fate beckoned and Rock On landed in her lap.

"One of the ex students of the first batch of FTII, Aditya Kripalani, was working with director Abhishek Kapoor on another project. When Aditya heard Abhishek's idea of making a story around a rock band, Aditya felt it would be up my street and put me through to Abhishek," she says.

"I'd spent six months in Mumbai then as a professional script writer. This was my first opportunity to write a feature film and what's more it was to be set against a culture I knew intimately. So, I jumped at it and that's how I started working on Rock On," she adds.

A reticent reply is right up her ally, when one asks Pubali the predictable question about her experience of working with the inimitable Farhan Akhtar.

"I'm going to have to disappoint you, as for all practical purpose, I didn't work with Farhan. It was not until my 3rd or 4th draft of the script that Abhishek started scouting for producers. In the meantime, he had had this idea of making the lead actor sing and he zeroed down on Farhan for this," she says.

"Farhan has said elsewhere that he found the script exciting and wanted to take it up. I had one meeting with Farhan where we discussed certain changes in the script. Farhan and his production house Excel Entertainment have always been associated with quality work, and I was happy that Abhishek had found the right 'vehicle' to put our story forward."

"Farhan is very smart and intelligent and always ready to do new things, which is probably why he took Rock On to its next level of realization. It was also a learning experience to see how he sharpened the script further when he fleshed out the dialogues," she adds.

When asked about the changing norms of Bollywood and a writer's place in an industry that is teetering on the threshold of professionalism, Pubali predicts a sea change with the coming in of the novel concept of 'bound scripts'.

"From a script writer's point of view, I'd say that with the coming of corporate production houses the concept of a 'bound script' has gained primacy. You have to remember that screenplay writing is a relatively new concept in Indian cinema as traditionally the only writers involved with a film used to be the lyricist and the dialogue writer."

"The idea of writing out the entire story scene by scene and taking it as a blueprint to your film project is a relatively new concept in India. I'm told Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai was the first 'bound script' here.... so it's a good time for writers," she says.

"The multiplex syndrome has enabled different kinds of stories to be told... though I suppose a distributor's best bet remains a 'star' element in the project...but nonetheless smaller, independent films are getting made and released," Pubali adds.

Bollywood in flux?

She, like many others in the industry, is also upbeat about the fact that the Indian audiences' generic tastes are developing to gorge on small budget, novel scripts that seek to diversify upon the quintessential idea of a hero-heroine oriented Hindi movie.

Pubali hails the much touted "winds of change" that are wowing the Bollywood of today.

"There remains an obsession with 'happy endings' and banishing the darker points of view...but a Johnny Gaddar did get made. I often wonder how Guru Dutt's tragedies or Govind Nihalini's Aakrosh or Shyam Benegal's Manthan would fare with the popcorn munching and cell phone ringing audience of the multiplex today! But we're out here hoping that the winds of change will blow, maybe slowly...but still good stories well told will capture the audience," says Pubali.

Coming back to Rock On, the film's box office success makes one wonder about Pubali's own estimation of her work and where it stood as per her standards of excellence.

"It's very difficult to be objective about your own work, but personally I feel the first half of the film does a good job of drawing the audience into the story, and I'm particularly happy about the way I could structure the story between the flashbacks and the present events."

For Pubali her work is something she enjoys and this is what makes her move completely in tandem with the characters she creates.

"One of the first things that occurred to me when Abhishek narrated his story idea was that if it had to be a story about a band then all four guys should have an equal part to play rather than just Aditya's story."

"I'm a very character-driven writer, and I guess etching out Joe and Debbie's characters were the most enjoyable for me. We had bit more of KD and Rob too...but that had to be edited out for the sake of brevity. But I always liked the idea of Rob as a kind of silent manipulator, who actually desperately wants the band to get together...but never quite comes out in the open about his motivation," she says.

With the world as her oyster, this gifted Bong has many a task up her sleeve that includes amid other film scripts, her original stories. The young professional is in the midst of writing a romantic comedy and a fantasy piece, and from the looks of it, she is raring to cast her spell on the silver screen and beyond.