Kajol Aikat

Birth

Aikat was born in a joint Bengali Hindu household to Shaymal Kumar Aikat, a government serviceman and Mitra Aikat, a housewife.^[20] Aikat was diagonsed with the neural conditions of chronic epilepsy when he was one and a half years old and since has been under due treatment at the Central Institute of Psychiatry , Ranchi.^[21]

2011-2014: Unsocial Amigos

Aikat started writing his first novel in 2011, during his first semester of graduation at the age of 17. Aikat was always an avid reader and a skilful portrait artist.

But in spite of his tilt to art and literature, he never intended to pen a full-fledged novel until he became tired of being a victim of severe bullying and the resulting social stigma of being a neural patient. He found his solace during writing everything on paper and one day he was invoked with the idea of framing a novel on society and its issues. As he once said that when he was searching for something to read so that he could curse and relate to his inferior social status of being, he had to write one novel on it because he didn't find any other.

As per Aikat, Unsocial Amigos was initially planned to be set on two epileptic patients standing against the society. But, as he gained more insights on the subject he converted the context to a rather more frequent picture of two normal people committing a live-in while the common society rejects them as they don't ask for an approval. The first draft of Unsocial Amigos was completed in 2013 and after a year of pitching, it got traditionally published by APAD in April 2014.^[22]

The book was received well and became a national bestseller after 3 months of its release. It is also reported that Aikat had to face multiple rejections for his manuscript, while some publishers also asked for a hefty sum to get the drafts published.

Unsocial Amigos was nominated for the category 'Best novel to have rape as a theme, 2014' in the 'Goodreads Choice Awards' by Goodreads.^[23] In the same year, Aikat was also felicitated by the DAV CMC with the 'Mahatma N.D. Grover Young Achiever's Award' in the field of literature.

2015: The Unbreakable You, Reason To Live

As the Unsocial Amigos claimed Aikat to fame,^[24] he was approached by Write India Publishers approached to write one short story for their upcoming anthology 'The Unbreakable You'. Aikat then wrote his first short story 'Life Isn't a Fairytale' which was closely related to his high school life when he was criminally bullied on the grounds of his challenging medical conditions by both his peers and seniors.

Later that year, Aikat released his second novel 'Reason To Live', which became a national bestseller by the end of December 2015. Reason to Live was a romance fiction novel about Ravi Bannerjee, an author with medical conditions of fatal depression who finds his hope in Meera, his caretaker and prescribed neural doctor. The story was largely based on the 'a-kind-of-love-I-would-always-dream-to-have' idea, as said by Aikat himself. The idealistic romance in this novel had hit a chord with many readers and turned out to be another of Aikat's bestselling works.

In the same year, Aikat's sectional biography was also featured on Ford India's official website under the 'Ford What Drives You Campaign'.^[25]

2016: Depression and Temporary Withdrawal

Aikat was reported ^[26] to have some major personal issues in the year 2016 and therefore he took a year-long withdrawal from writing. He was also said to go to repeated states of depression and have anxiety attacks during this entire period. Meanwhile, he had joined Vodafone as an Assistant Manager in sales from which he voluntarily resigned on 31 December 2016.

2017: The Cotton Seed, Soul Break Part One Of Two

Aikat after quitting his day job resumed to writing and signed in a series of individual short stories dubbed as Tiny Tales.

Aikat incepted the line-up with a short story called 'The Cotton Seed' which was based on women education and empowerment. The story was a period drama set in a backdrop of 18th century Bihar where a farmer's widow daughter Ila, strives to stand as a woman against the prevalent patriarchal norms of the medieval Indian society. The book was well received by the critics ^[27] but somehow catered to a lesser ground audience due to its core classic approach. However, it became a national bestseller after a month of its release due to a decent marketing campaign and quality of the content which hit many readers with Aikat's clever and insightful narratives.

The demographics of the content in The Cotton Seed is influenced by Dehri On Sone, a suburb of Bihar where Aikat spent the most of his 2016. Aikat during his stay interacted with hundreds of rural women to research on the rooted patriarch which still prevailed in such areas. The Cotton Seed was also nominated for 'Short Story of the Year Award 2017' by Salis Magazine, India.^[28]

In the same year, Aikat published another short story, 'Soul Break Part One of Two', a crime fiction thriller and the first instalment in the duology. It narrates the story of Kush Raman, a businessman whose pregnant wife is mutilated and then murdered in his absence and board daylight, yet the police are unable to trace the murderer. So, he himself embarks on a quest to find his culprit and avenge his wife and the unborn child.^[29]

Soul Break Part One became an overnight bestseller after its release on Aikat's birthday and fetched decent reviews from critics as well. The book sold over 57000 e-Book copies in 6 hours post its worldwide release. The book was praised for the 'thoroughly entertaining' suspense storyline and intriguing narrative throughout the book. Soul Break Part One has also been Aikat's most sold book till date. Before the release of Soul Break Part One of Two, Aikat was also seen attending the screenings of the 8th Annual Jagran Film Festival (JFF 2017), held at Ranchi in July 2017.

2018–present

According to Wikinetworth.org, in January 2018, Aikat upon his five books and other acquisitions has a net worth of $1.20 million. By far, this is also the highest net worth to be of any English writing author from the territory of Jharkhand .^[30]

Soul Break Part Two of Two ^[31] released in September 2018. It is the final sequel in continuity to the Soul Break Part One Of Two and concludes the Kush Raman story arc. The story starts from where the 'Part One' ended and extends in the further chain of events which leads Kush Raman to the truth behind his wife's murder.^[32]

Books

• Unsocial Amigos (2014)
• The Unbreakable You (2015)
• Reason to Live (2015)
• The Cotton Seed (2017)
• Soul Break Part 01 of 02 (2017)
• Soul Break Part 02 of 02 (2018)