Try something like this:
>>> from docutils.core import publish_string
>>> publish_string("*anurag*", writer_name="html")
publish_string accepts a strings and outputs a string or you can use publish_parts to get specific parts of html document e.g.
>>> from docutils.core import publish_parts
>>> print publish_parts("*anurag*", writer_name="html")['html_body']
<p><em>anurag</em></p>