At first glance, she could be easily mistaken for a traditional housewife. But the thought is quickly dispelled once Dr N S Leela begins talking. 

Then comes the next hurdle. For a mind conditioned to group people on the basis of their qualifications and/or calling, it is difficult to ‘classify’ Dr Leela as a Zoologist, a researcher, an environmental activist, an English and Kannada writer, an avid science enthusiast or a Sanskrit scholar. Yes, Dr Leela is all of these and much more.
One quickly realises that here is a person who is a veritable fount of knowledge. Even during her service as Professor of Zoology at the MES College in Bangalore, Dr Leela spent most of her free time at the library housing a large collection of ancient Sanskrit works. Understanding the fundamental concepts contained in the vast body of ancient Indian literature and explaining them in the light of present-day science in an easily understandable manner has been one of her primary pursuits.  

Collaborating with eminent Sanskrit scholar Prof K T Pandurangi, Dr Leela has come out with very many papers at seminars and workshops on diverse topics, all highlighting the inherent oneness in all of creation, both animate and inanimate. She says that the human body is but the Universe in a microcosm in both its structure and functioning and that the ills plaguing us are due to our failure to understand the universe.

Wonderful synthesis

Be it the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Charaka Samhita, the works of the poets like Kalidasa and Bhasa, Dr Leela has delved deep into them to create a wonderful synthesis of the ancient and the modern.   
  
Under the aegis of the Dwaita Vedanta Studies and Research Foundation, she along with    Prof Pandurangi, has co-authored many books and papers such as “Environment in the    Puranas”, “Plants-Ritual and Medicine” etc which have been widely acclaimed. It was while pursuing her doctoral work in Delhi that her paper on Hist-Cyto Chemistry in the Journal of Experimental Biology caught the attention of Prof Barry of the Colorado University who invited her there for post doctoral research. With a team of international scientists, she carried out extensive work on the role of hormones that had an important bearing on Parkinson’s Disease, caused due to the insufficient secretion of the hormone Dopamine. Her paper was published in the journal ‘Brain Research’.     

Dr Leela has written many books on famous scientists, simple scientific facts and the  environment. It is this passion for science that has made her to team up with the Agasthya International Foundation which is involved in the propagation of science in the rural areas. She regularly travels to places like Kolar, Chintamani, Malur etc for conducting workshops for both students and teachers.

One’s brain is in a whirl of emotions after taking leave of Dr Leela. There are many more unanswered questions, the most important of them being how does she manage to  successfully straddle so many different domains? For, she is no woolly-headed traditionalist or a steely minded scientist working with cold surgical precision, but a refreshingly different amalgamation of both with all their offshoots thrown in. One cannot but agree with this sprightly mobile knowledge house when she says “Every scientist is a philosopher in the end”. That about sums up her persona.