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Overview
Ashok Kallarakkal a.k.a Dr. T.K. Ashok Kumar (born on 20 May) is an Indian writer who writes short stories in English and Malayalam. His debut short story collection Curiosity Kills the KatHA was released in August 2012 by Leadstart Publishing. The book, containing nine short stories, received critical acclaim and was nominated for the prestigious 'Author Awards' and was long-listed for the 'Crossword Awards 2013'. Following the release of the book, Dr. Ashok was interviewed by several publications including the New Indian Express and Deccan Chronicle and was also interviewed by International authors like Morgen Bailey. Ashok's second collection of short stories -- Palette of Love - was published in November 2013. The book contained five short stories mostly dealing with different aspects of love. His stories in Malayalam, published in magazines like Kalakaumudi and Oruma have received praises from people of different walks of life.

Education and Career
Ashok Kallarakkal did his graduation in electronics engineering from National Institute of Technology, Calicut and went on to complete his doctorate in International Business from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He has worked in India and abroad in various IT organizations in the project management and product management areas. He is considered as one of the thought leaders in the area of IT product management in India. He left his job as the worldwide product manager for Tivoli security products in IBM in 2012 to pursue his passion for creative writing. Dr. Ashok speaks regularly in conferences and meetings especially on Product Management and product strategies. He also conducts corporate trainings in the areas of innovation, business communication, business strategy etc. He is a regular visiting faculty at various management institutes and has been the member of the academic board of Manipal University. Ashok is also a member of the prestigious MENSA international, the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world

Writing
Ashok has started his journey in creative writing in his school days, writing science fiction stories in vernacular science magazines like Shastra Keralam. In his own words, he describes his trysts with creative writing humorously as follows: ''Ashok has written a number of science fiction stories in popular regional science magazines like Shastra Keralam in his school days, but had curtailed his urge to write more, to devote time for higher education and building a career like every other middle class youth. He rediscovered his flair for writing fiction while writing innumerable sales proposals as part of his job. His dream now is to spend more and more time on creative writing and other passions from 2012 (Though this does not mean moving back to a sales job).''

His first collection of short stories 'Curiosity Kills the KatHA' was published in August 2012. Every story in the book boasted of surprising twists at the end like O Henry and Jeffrey Archer stories. They also dealt with serious philosophical aspects and left food for thought in the reader's mind. New Indian Express observed in an author interview ... Ashok Kallarakkal's book, 'Curiosity kills the KAtHA' has absorbing short stories with surprise endings...Renowned literary philosopher and critic M.K.Harikumar remarked  Ashok Kallarakkal is an author on who we can pin our hopes in future. The book has received high ratings in book review sites like Goodreads.com.

Stories in 'Palette of Love'- Ashok's second book are quite different in style and content from the first. The book concentrates more on the emotional aspects of human relations and do not attempt surprising twists at the end.

Ashok's story 'Porali' which appeared in Malayalam weekly Kalakaumudi (Aug 04 2013) dealt with the hypocrisy of the Indian psyche who would like to see widows of war to live certain style of life. Considering the offbeat issue it had raised, the story attracted favorable reviews from readers.

Influences
Ashok was born in a village in Kottayam, Kerala, close to the southern tip of India. According to Ashok, this is the land where one of the apostles preached in person and Islam got introduced at prophet's time itself. Thus the land he grew up was the cradle of secularist and balanced thought. This has influenced his thoughts and writing to a large extent. In the setting he was born, in his own words, the only path to a better life was education and he was initiated into and mentored for good education by his parents - his mother being a teacher and father working in the education field.  They also ensured that he had the freedom to indulge in unbiased and critical thinking on all 'isms' and 'theologies' surrounded him which is well reflected in his writing. In a career spreading over twenty years, he has played roles of Project Manager, Product Manager, Pre-Sales Consultant, Delivery head, CTO, COO and so on in various companies in different  countries. It is in some of those customer facing roles - especially in proposal preparation - that he claims to have helped in re-discovering his fiction writing skills. His stints abroad also has played a big role in expanding his horizons thereby giving him a wider canvas to depict his characters.

As a writer, he is influenced greatly by O.Henry, Jeffry Archer, Saki, Giovanni Guareschi, M.T Vasudevan Nair and C.R. Omanakkuttan, to name a few.