Meet the Kerala Sahitya Akademi winner who drives an excavator by day

Akhil’s foray into literature was unusual. Over the last 15 years, he donned multiple hats — as a newspaper boy, sand mining worker, backhoe loader operator, etc., — to run the family, which comprises his parents, a brother and grandmother.

“When I was 12, my father M Mohanan, a photographer by profession, decided to call it a day. My mother was a daily-wage labourer at that time. It was a struggle for us to survive. A local newspaper agent employed me. I had to distribute just 60 papers in my village, but had to fetch a bundle with 200 copies from Payyanur, about 8 km away from my home,’’ recalled Akhil.

Akhil K, who decided not to pursue college due to his family’s precarious financial situation, has been working to support his family after his father quit working when Akhil was just 12. As a student in class 6, he would cycle 8 km at 3 am to fetch a bundle of 200 newspapers and deliver a few in his village. He started mining sand from the riverbed a year later. Following a brief stint as a salesperson, he became a helper to backhoe loader. Over the next two years, he learnt how to operate the machine and earned a license to operate one. He continues to hold that job despite his literary achievements. (File Photo)

Then a class 6 student, Akhil would cycle to Payyanur at 3 am each day to fetch that newspaper bundle, distribute the newspapers by 8 am and then rush to school. He received a pittance — just Rs 350 per month — for newspaper distribution. However, the amount was not enough to help his mother run the family. A year later, he took up the job of mining sand from a nearby river. Since mining sand from the river was illegal, work would start at night. Well into the small hours, Akhil would help local workers load sand scooped from the riverbed into trucks. He made Rs 500 per day doing this. At 3 am, he would cycle 8 km to Payyanur to bring newspaper bundles for distribution.

Of struggle and imagination

However, these struggle-filled nights sowed the seeds of writing in the boy. Recalling how he was forced to turn to the world of imagination, Akhil said, “I was afraid of the dark. There was a burial ground behind my house and I grew up hearing stories of wandering ghosts. I had no option but to work at night as a sand miner and paper boy. I felt scared only when my mind was unoccupied. To keep that fear at bay, I would recall the stories that teachers told in the classroom or incidents that happened in the village. In fact, this habit slowly unleashed my imagination. At first, I conceived stories in the form of images in my mind. Slowly, I took many of those stories forward,” he said.

While in high school, Akhil stumbled into the world of books by chance. After a librarian at a local library went on leave following an accident, Akhil’s help was sought to keep the facility open in the evening. “People were aware that I took up odd jobs. I had nothing to do at the library, other than sit glued in front of a TV screen, which played the news on a loop. For two months, I did not riffle through the pages of a single book in the library. After two months, I was paid a wage of Rs 500. That spurred me to dust the books on the shelves. A few books fell down while I was doing that. Out of curiosity, I picked up one to read. I abandoned it after reading three-four pages as I felt the writing was tough,” he said.

While Akhil’s short stint at the library did not encourage him to pick up a book, it was the distribution of newspapers on foot to houses without accessible roads that fuelled his imagination. “While walking to the houses of such subscribers, I would scan the pages of the dailies and the magazines. At times, my reading would end abruptly at the door of a subscriber. I would keep wondering about the fate of the people involved or the characters. It was these readings that helped ignite and enrich my imagination,” he said.

As a writer, Akhil tried his luck with film scripts. After class 11, a script stashed inside his school bag, he boarded a bus to Palakkad. “There was no one to introduce me to the director. I found the address of a director from a film magazine and went to his house. At his house, everyone looked at me with askance. The director was not ready to hear me out,” he said.

Akhil returned home, but decided to try his hand at short stories. “When I mined sand, I heard the others, all elders, share their life’s experiences. Their experiences provided me with the material needed for my stories. At night, I would sit for hours and write stories. Soon, I started sending my short stories to publications houses,’’ he said.

Since his family was in dire straits, Akhil decided not to pursue college after class 12. “I mined sand at night and during the day, I worked as a salesperson in a shop in Payyanur. But I was absent-minded at work and would keep daydreaming. I realised that it was not a good fit for me. The search for a new lucrative job took me to the world of construction equipment. Initially, I got a job as a helper to a backhoe loader. For two years, I worked as a helper and learnt how to operate the machine. After that, I became a full-fledged licensed operator.

Despite his multiple jobs, Akhil continued to write. He did not read or have a social life. In school, his life was limited to his classrooms, home and an assortment of workplaces. Although his village was rich in culture due to theyyam, an ancient dance form in northern Kerala, it did not touch any part of Akhil’s life. Nobody knew that he was writing stories.

From 2015 to 2019, he kept writing. Early in the morning, he would leave for the construction site to operate the machine. At night, he would sit in his two-room house with a pen and paper to translate his imagination into words. “In 2017, I purchased a laptop after taking a loan from a bank. My house was leaky at that time. I bought the laptop to store my stories,” he recalled.

He wrote and wrote and wrote over these four years. Though he sent his stories to various publishing houses, he did not receive a single reply, not even a rejection letter. So he went to publishing houses with his compendium of six stories. In 2019, for the first time, Akhil got a call from a publisher.

“He appreciated my writing, but was reluctant to publish my work. He said nobody knew me and that only works by well-known writers or familiar names did well in the market. When I approached other writers, they snubbed me by saying the same thing. Some publishers even sought money — close to Rs 45,000 — to bring out 500 copies. I was a backhoe loader operator and did not have money. I felt hopeless and decided to destroy my stories. Some stories kept in a cardboard box under a cot got burnt and also got deleted from my laptop. Feeling like I was not fit to write, I decided to stop writing,” he said.

Resting on the seat of a backhoe in 2019, Akhil spotted an advertisement on Facebook that said “you can also become a writer”. It caught his attention and rekindled his hope.

“The publisher, Green Books, demanded Rs 20,000 to publish a 100-page collection of stories. That was the lowest amount demanded by a publisher. I decided to exhaust my savings of Rs 10,000. My mother, now a headload worker at Payyanur, readily handed over her hard-earned money, another Rs 10,000, to help me realise my dream.”

A social media post full of appreciation

In June 2020, Green Books brought out a collection of eight stories titled Neelachadayan. Just 300 copies were published and the book was only sold online. The book did not make ripples till scriptwriter Bipin Chandran, in a Facebook post, appreciated Neelachadayan and expressed his desire to make a film based on one of the stories.

People saw the Facebook post and started enquiring about the book. Having received an avalanche of enquiries for the book, the publisher brought out a second edition with 1,000 copies. “All eight stories in Neelachadayan were written over the years. These were stories that had been rejected by multiple publishers,” Akhil said.

After Neelachadayan, he switched to novels. His first novel, Story of Lion, came out in 2021 and his second novel, Tharakanthan, in 2022. Both novels were published by Mathrubhumi Books. Story of Lion is now in its fifth edition. “Publishers have been coming to me to bring out my next book, my third novel. It will be published by the end of this year,” he said.

Akhil, who has taken a short break from his day job and plans to rejoin work next month, said the publication of his books had not changed much in his life. “I won’t abandon my current job till I start making decent income from writing,” he said, adding that he is still not a voracious reader.

“Till six months back, I had read just 50 books. Of these, I have read just two dozen till the end. I recently became a member of a public library at Payyanur. For me, there is no difference between fiction and non-fiction. For me, every book and its subject are new,” Akhil said.

Talking about his childhood, he said since his father was an alcoholic, he would seek solace by listening to stories from an old man who lived near his house. “He would narrate stories from the epics in a gripping manner. Those recitations influenced my language. My stories were inspired by my struggles and the experiences shared by others. I still don’t have much of a social life. But my life in different roles has given me an enriching experience about people and their lives,” he said.