Manjula Padmanabhan (born 23 June 1953) is an Indian playwright, journalist, comic strip artist, and children's book author.
[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.
[3] She began her career as an illustrator in 1979 with Ali Baig's book Indrani and the Enchanted Jungle.
[4] She wrote a pitch to The Sunday Observer editor Vinod Mehta, who published her strip for many years.
Padmanabhan has continued to work as an author and illustrator, and has published short stories within many different volumes.