At the centre of Life of Pi is the story of a boy looking for the truth

INTERVIEW - Lolita Chakrabarti, playwright

- POOJA BIRAIA

What happens when a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, a tiger and a boy walk on to a lifeboat? You get the story of Yann Martel's Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, about a zoo manager's son, Piscine Molitor 'Pi' Patel, who gets stranded on a lifeboat with the animals when the ship his family is sailing on sinks. The book blends fantasy and reality beautifully, until you can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. Much of Life of Pi defies belief, but then is not life, too, like that? As Martel says in the book, "If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer."

And now, the Olivier award-winning stage adaptation of Life of Pi, directed by Max Webster and produced by Simon Friend, is being staged at the NMACC in Mumbai on December 5. Lolita Chakrabarti, the Indo-British playwright who brings Pi's story to life, talks to THE WEEK about the challenges of adapting a philosophical book for the stage and recreating the sense of wonder that has become endangered in today's fast-paced world. She describes the play as a "theatrical feast that even brings alive the Pacific Ocean onstage".

Excerpts from the interview:

Q\What were the challenges of adapting a novel like Life of Pi for the stage?