Manjula Padmanabhan

Last updated

Manjula Padmanabhan
Born (1953-06-23) 23 June 1953 (age 70)
Delhi, India
OccupationPlaywright, novelist, illustrator, short story person, journalist, children's book author
Alma mater Elphinstone College
Genre Comic strip, science fiction
Years active1979–present
Notable awards Onassis Award
Website
magnoliana.com

Manjula Padmanabhan (born 23 June 1953) is an Indian playwright, journalist, comic strip artist, and children's book author. Her works explore science, technology, gender, and international inequalities.

Contents

Life

Padmanabhan was born in Delhi in 1953 to an Indian diplomat father. She was raised in Sweden, Pakistan, and Thailand. [1] [2] She was an avid reader of comics and cartoons, and often drew and wrote as a child. [3]

When Padmanabhan was sixteen, her father retired and her family returned to India, where she was surprised by the more traditional society and was limited by not knowing Hindi or Marathi. [1]

Padmanabhan attended Elphinstone College. While at school, she worked at Parsiana to gain financial independence from her family. [1]

Career and works

Padmanabhan continued working as a journalist and book reviewer into her 20s and 30s. [3] She began her career as an illustrator in 1979 with Ali Baig's book Indrani and the Enchanted Jungle. [2]

In 1982, Padmanabhan created a comic strip, Doubletalk, which featured the female character Suki. [4] She wrote a pitch to The Sunday Observer editor Vinod Mehta, who published her strip for many years. [5] [6] Suki then appeared six days a week in Delhi paper The Pioneer from 1992 to 1998. When Vinod Mehta left the publications and The Pioneer stopped publishing comics, Padmanabhan stopped creating Doubletalk.

Padmanabhan won the first ever Onassis Award for her play Harvest . An award-winning film Deham was made by Govind Nihalani based on the play.

Padmanabhan has continued to work as an author and illustrator, and has published short stories within many different volumes.

Padmanabhan returned to creating comics featuring Suki with the strip Suki Yaki for The Hindu's Business Line.

As playwright

As author and illustrator

As illustrator

Comic strips

Short stories

Autobiography

Related Research Articles

Pran Kumar Sharma, better known as Pran, was an Indian cartoonist best known as the creator of Chacha Chaudhary (1971). He also created other characters like Shrimatiji, Pinki, Billoo, Raman, and Channi Chachi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vinod Mehta</span> Indian journalist, editor and political commentator (1941 – 2015)

Vinod Mehta was an Indian journalist, editor and political commentator. He was also the founder editor-in-chief of Outlook from 1995 to 2012 and had been editor of publications such as The Pioneer, The Sunday Observer, The Independent and The Indian Post. He was also the author of several books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gita Mehta</span> American writer and filmmaker (1943–2023)

Gita Mehta was an Indian-American writer and documentary filmmaker. As a journalist and documentary filmmaker she frequently covered war and conflict including covering the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971. As an author she published five books which were translated into 21 languages. Her works described aspects of life in India and were intended to interpret the country for a largely western audience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urvashi Butalia</span> Indian feminist and historian

Urvashi Butalia is an Indian feminist writer, publisher and activist. She is known for her work in the women's movement of India, as well as for authoring books such as The Other Side of Silence: Voices from and the Partition of India and Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sucheta Dalal</span> Indian journalist

Sucheta Dalal is an Indian business journalist and author. She has been a journalist for over two decades and was awarded a Padma Shri for journalism in 2006. She was the Financial Editor for the Times of India until 1998 when she joined the Indian Express group as a Consulting Editor, leaving in 2008. She is known for exposing the 1992 stock market scam propagated by Harshad Mehta.

Suniti Namjoshi is a poet and a fabulist. She grew up in India, worked in Canada and at present lives in the southwest of England with English writer Gillian Hanscombe. Her work is playful, inventive and often challenges prejudices such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. She has written many collections of fables and poetry, several novels, and more than a dozen children's books. Her work has been translated into several languages, including Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Korean, Hindi and Turkish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indrani</span> Consort of Indra in Hindu mythology

Indrani, also known as Shachi, is the queen of the devas in Hinduism. Described as tantalisingly beautiful, proud and kind, she is the daughter of the asura Puloman and the consort of the king of the devas, Indra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mrinal Pande</span> Writer, journalist, editor, media personality

Mrinal Pande is an Indian television personality, journalist and author, and until 2009 chief editor of Hindi daily Hindustan.

Target was a popular Indian children's magazine that was published monthly in English from 1979 to 1995. It featured a mix of reader contributions, stories from regular writers, do-it-yourself articles and several popular comic strips.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pupul Jayakar</span> Indian writer (1915–1997)

Pupul Jayakar was an Indian cultural activist and writer, best known for her work on the revival of traditional and village arts, handlooms, and handicrafts in post-independence India. According to The New York Times, she was known as "India's 'czarina of culture'", and founded arts festivals that promoted Indian arts in France, Japan, and the United States. She was a friend and biographer to both the Nehru-Gandhi family and J Krishnamurti. Jayakar had a close relationship with three prime ministers: Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi, and she was a close friend of Indira Gandhi. She served as cultural adviser to the latter two, confirming her preeminence in cultural matters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indrani Rahman</span> Indian classical dancer (1930–1999)

Indrani Rahman was an Indian classical dancer of Bharata Natyam, Kuchipudi, Kathakali, Odissi and beauty pageant titleholder. she popularised in the west and later settled in New York in 1976.

Harvest is a futuristic dystopian play by Manjula Padmanabhan about organ-selling in India. It was first published in 1997 by Kali for Women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neha Dixit</span> Indian journalist and author

Neha Dixit is an Indian freelance journalist covering politics, gender and social justice. She has been awarded over a dozen awards including the Chameli Devi Jain Award (2016) as well as CPJ International Press Freedom Award (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalamandalam Satyabhama</span> Indian classical dancer, teacher and choreographer

Kalamandalam V. Satyabhama was an Indian classical dancer, teacher and choreographer, known for her performances and scholarship in Mohiniyattam. She was awarded the Padma Shri, in 2014, for her contributions to the art and culture, by the Government of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepita Seth</span> British-born writer and photographer

Pepita Seth is a British-born writer and photographer, known for her accounts of the temple arts and rituals of Kerala and her photographs of the widely celebrated captive elephant, Guruvayur Keshavan. The Government of India honoured her, in 2012, with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for her services to the field of art and culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tara Ali Baig</span>

Tara Ali Baig was a social reformer, writer, and first Asian woman President of the International Union for Child Welfare in Geneva.

Shweta Taneja is an Indian author of novels, short fiction, graphic novels, nonfiction and comic books. Her work includes fantasy fiction series The Rakta Queen: An Anantya Tantrist Mystery, The Matsya Curse: An Anantya Tantrist Mystery, Cult of Chaos: An Anantya Tantrist Mystery and books for YA and children including The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong and How to Steal a Ghost @ Manipal.

Priya Sarukkai Chabria is an Indian poet, translator and novelist writing in English, and a curator. She has written four poetry collections, two speculative fiction novels, translations from Classical Tamil, literary nonfiction, and a novel. She has edited two poetry anthologies. She is also founding editor of Poetry at Sangam, an Indian online literary journal of poetry.

<i>Meena Kumari</i> (book) Biography by Vinod Mehta

Meena Kumari is a biography by Vinod Mehta about the Indian actress of the same name. It details her birth in 1933 in Bombay, her 33-year-long acting career, her marriage to Kamal Amrohi, and her death in 1972. It also includes Mehta's analysis on her career and film roles. The first edition published in October 1972 by Jaico Publishing House was praised by critics, but its second edition, Meena Kumari: The Classic Biography, released on 10 July 2013 by HarperCollins, met with mixed criticism.

Parismita Singh is an Indian author, illustrator, graphic novelist, and educator. She is a founding member of the Pao Collective, and her work includes The Hotel at the End of the World, which was shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize and is one of the first graphic novels published in India. She is also the author and illustrator of the short story collection Peace Has Come.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "And still I rise: Why Manjula Padmanabhan never came to terms being the second sex". The Indian Express. 4 October 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  2. 1 2 The Oxford encyclopedia of children's literature. Jack Zipes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2006. ISBN   0-19-514656-5. OCLC   62342788.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. 1 2 3 Manjula padmanabhan. (2013, Aug 24). Mint Retrieved from Proquest.
  4. Padmanabhan, Manjula. "The return of Suki: four windows to India's most original comic strip". Scroll.in. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  5. Padmanabhan, Manjula. "The return of Suki: four windows to India's most original comic strip". Scroll.in. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  6. Moddie, Mandira (28 August 2005). "Antics of Suki". The Hindu . Archived from the original on 7 November 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2009.