Neelakesi proved that anybody can be a rishi, irrespective of birth A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a fascinating character, who serves as the focal point for a now lost epic, Kundalakesi. In an effort to track down more about Kundalakesi, a few years ago, I found myself in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, pulling out a book that contained the Tamil text and an English summary of another lesser-known epic, titled the Neelakesi, which, unlike the Kundalakesi does not make the cut for being one of the five great Tamil epics. This summary of Neelakesi had been published in 1936 but not checked out since 1983, which was the year before I was born. It felt like I was stumbling upon something that had faded from recollection a long time ago.

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