KANNUR: Think of an Indian journalist based in New York, persistently writing letters to The New York Times for more than three decades concentrating mainly on issues concerning India. And, he takes trouble even to draw attention to the need to correct the grammatical errors of US president Barack Obama, who is known for his reputation as a writer of flawless English and as an eloquent speaker in that language.M P Prabhakaran, a native of Narath in Kannur district, working as a freelance journalist, who reached New York more than three decades ago, started writing letters to the New York Times on issues he felt strongly about, the day he reached there. As a budding journalist, Prabhakaran was ‘an addict of the New York Times’ when he reached the US after working for some time as a cub reporter in Mumbai. He wrote letters to the Editor of the NYT on a variety of issues ever since his arrival in New York.The NYT chose to publish some of them while ignoring the others. But Prabhakaran isn’t bothered about it. He has no complaints against the NYT either. In what could be described as an interesting response to his experience as a journalist and writer based in the US, Prabhakaran decided to publish the letters which the NYT wasn’t ready to publish.The result was a book, ‘Letters on India - The New York Times Did not Publish’. The book was brought out by Rosedog Books, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Incidentally, it is the second book published by Prabhakaran, who visits his native village once in a year. The first book written by Prabhakaran — ‘The World as an Indian Sees It-I’ was based mainly on his visits to a chain of countries after he started working as a journalist in New York.Prabhakaran, who was on a visit to his native village, recently, while talking to Express, said, “The first reading material I bought after reaching America, over three decades ago, was a copy of the New York Times.” “If the title of his second book has an accusatory tone, it is unintentional, he said. He made it a point writing letters to the NYT whenever he spotted errors- factual or judgmental. That was how he happened to write to the NYT on US president Obama’s use of ‘I’ instead of ‘me’ in phrases like ‘a very personal decision for Michelle and I’. This was one of the letters the NYT chose not to publish. It appears as “To err, grammatically, is human” in his new book.Unfortunately, the ‘Letters The New York Times Did not publish’, related to his views on a variety of Indian issues including ‘Arundhati Roy romanticizes terrorism in Kashmir’ and ‘British Embassy in Delhi still has a colonial mentality’ The issues on which Prabhakaran wrote to the NYT ranged from the ‘The antiquated mission of Indian Communists’ to the ‘Role of Madrassas in providing fanatical zeal to carry out terrorist acts’.Still, Prabhakaran says that his book doesn’t bring out all the letters he wrote to The New York Times.
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