 Manoj composed two Kathakali librettos "Panchali Dhananjayam" and "Bhagavad Geetha" during his college days.He won the Kunchu Pillai Memorial Award for Young Poets in 1997 for his poem "Thrithala Kesavan" which was based on the Thayambaka expert Thrithaka Kesava Poduval.His first published poetry collection "Uthamapurushan Katha Parayumpol" ("When the First-Person Narrates") contains 30 poems.