Neelabh was born in Lucknow in 1965.He started his career as a crime reporter at The Pioneer and later worked as a cartoonist and illustrator for Target magazine. He moved on to become a staff artist at the Times of India, where he was the national arts and illustrations editor. At the Times of India, Neelabh collaborated with associate editor Jug Suraiya to create the popular comic strip Dubyaman, ‘a deranged superhero destined to skid on the banana peel of his own ineptitude’ based on American president George Bush.The comic strips were collected in a book, Dubyaman’s Duniya, which appeared in 2002. The two have also collaborated on the strip Duniya ke Neta which appeared in the Times of India.