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Neela Padmanabhan is a leading figure in the arena of Tamil Literature. An engineer by profession, a humanist by instinct, he has straddled the scene like a Colossus, producing novels, short stories and poems and critical essays that have found warm reception from the readers. He wrested from the Tamil spoken in the districts of former Madras Presidency and hence considered to be hybrid. From then on, he never looked back. His pen responded to the outpouring of a pained heart lacerated by a million wounds, troubled by a trillion aches, not necessarily his own, but of society at large. If these are not the ideal spirit of great literature, what else is! Neela has a spiritual bend of mind. His quest for the eternal and the permanent finds expression in his writings. His writing is of the people, but not for all the people. It is for the discerning, for those who are ready to crack the hard shell to get the real essence of wisdom inlaid. Awards and honours, he had reaped in abundance. He was on the Tamil Advisory Panel of the Central Sahitya Akademi where his work left a deep imprint. At 65, he stands at the height of his power. His thin frame and pinched face, with a flowing beard, set with burning eyes, gives him the image of a karmayogi.