- Thursday, February 27, 2025
Akhil Kavintarikath’s hardships while he supported his family as a teenager played a big role in him emerging an award-winning author.
By: Shubham Ghosh
HE was a school dropout who managed a living for his family by working as a newspaper boy and on building sites. But his fortunes eventually smiled on him and he ended up bagging one of India’s prestigious literary prizes.
Akhil Kavintarikath was only 16 when his father gave up working, forcing him to drop out of his own work to support his family, including his parents, brother and grandmother in Paravanthatta village of Kannur in the southern state of Kerala, The Times UK reported.
Twelve years later, life smiled on him as he was awarded the top prize for his collection of short stories called Neelachadayan (after a strain of cannabis grown near his house) and written in Malayalam — the language of Kerala — by the Kerala Literary Academy, The Times UK report added. The recognition left Kavintarikath stunned.
In his struggling years, Kavintarikath had little time to even daydream, leave alone doing something for success. He delivered newspapers before going to school and after the classes, he did other odd jobs. He did not know what a spare time was.
Yet, in between the hectic schedule, the teen in him did not give up reading. He used to read some of the stories in newspapers and magazines that he delivered but could never finish them as he had to part ways with the publications soon since they had to be delivered.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Kavintarikath said the unfinished reading kept igniting his mind as he used to remain curious how the stories and their characters would end up. “That sparked my imagination,” he told the news publication.
Around this time, the boy started working in night shifts operating a JCB machine at a sand mine. His imagination power started overworking during this time, thanks to the challenging work that he did.
“I was afraid of the dark but had no option but to work at night. I felt scared and lonely when my mind was unoccupied so I started recalling the stories told by my teachers or the incidents that happened in my village and this fed my imagination,” he was quoted as saying.
In 2017, Kavintarikath bought a laptop with a loan he took from the bank and noted down on it whatever he could about the woes and dreams of ordinary people. He completed stories and started sending them to publishers hoping they would be published but faced usual rejections of first-time writers at the beginning.
A local company called Green Books then agreed to publish his stories only if paid a fee of Rs 20,000 (£200).
That did not deter Kavintarikath and he used his savings of Rs 10,000 (£95.22) while his mother gave him the remaining amount, he said.
In 2020, his work was published with a tiny print run of 300 books. But the sale was low in the beginning. Only a few copies were sold online until a praise from a scriptwriter named Bipin Chandran on Facebook boosted the sale and more copies were printed, attracting the attention of the state’s literary academy.
When Kavintarikath heard about him getting the award, he did not believe it in the beginning. But he then realised how much proud he and his family were.
“I am so happy and proud. My mother too is so proud of me. She keeps showing off my book to everyone,” he told The Times.
However, it is still early days in Kavintarikath’s literary career and he can not give up working yet. The award carried a meagre sum of Rs 5,000 (£48) and he plans to buy some books with it. His publisher is also thinking of bringing out the translation of his work in Hindi or English.
Kavintarikath has taken a brief break from operating a JCB machine but intends to rejoin work next month.
“My books have not changed much in my life. I won’t quit my current job until I start making decent money from writing. That’s my goal,” he was quoted as saying by the Times.
