Apropos of Rahi Gaikwad’s report about George Orwell’s birthplace (Jan. 19), it is not correct to say that local people did not know that Motihari in East Champaran was the birthplace of George Orwell until British journalist Ian Jan “discovered” it in 1983.
In 1971, I had procured and read both the English and Urdu versions of his novel 1984 at Muzaffarpur in North Bihar, when it was common knowledge in that region that Orwell’s birthplace was Motihari.
Qaiser Shamim,
Faridabad