The house in Motihari where Orwell (inset) was born. (PTI)

An Indian town is to honour a giant of 20th Century English literature more than a century after he was born there to an official in the British Empire.

Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, began his life in Bihar?s Motihari, where his father, Richard, was an opium agent in the Colonial Service.

As literary destinations go, ?Orwell?s Motihari? doesn?t have quite the allure of ?Shakespeare?s Stratford? or ?Wordsworth?s Windermere?, but civic dignitaries hope this may soon change.

Until last year, when a troop of scholars and journalists arrived for the centenary of Orwell?s birth on June 25, few people in Motihari had even heard of the author of Animal Farm or Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Now, with the assistance of the local branch of the Rotary Club, the house where Orwell was born is to be restored and, finances permitting, converted into a museum.

There is much work to be done. Orwell?s birthplace ? which has the unromantic address of PWB (Public Works Building) 2/12 ? is on the verge of surrendering completely to the elements. The roofline is bowed and buckled by years of monsoon rains, while the southern wall has been undermined by a large grapefruit tree.

Only the stone floor looks solid, cracked as it was by an earthquake that almost levelled Motihari in 1934.

?We shall rebuild the place, restoring it the way it was when Mr Orwell was born here, and placing signboards outside to tell visitors his story,? said Debapriya Mookherjee, a leading Rotarian.

At present, there is nothing to tell casual visitors that this modest two-room house was where Orwell spent the first year of his life being tended to by his mother, Ida, and an Indian ayah. But, on January 21, the Rotarians will install a placard marking the 55th anniversary of his death.

Orwell left India as a one-year-old in 1904, never to return. He almost did in 1921, when he applied to join the Imperial Indian police, but he was rejected, probably because of his Left-wing, pro-Congress sympathies.

It might be too soon to dream of tourist goldmines ? Motihari is reachable only by a 19-hour train journey from Delhi, or a spine-crushing five-hour drive from Patna ? but Rotarians are undeterred.

The almost roofless opium godown in front of the Orwells? bungalow could become a library, student hostel and visitor centre.

?We have already written to the local government requesting permission to begin work and have received our first donation of Rs 11,000 for the work to begin,? said Mookherjee.

More problematic than restoring the buildings will be finding something to put inside them, as nothing meaningful has survived from the Orwell era. However, the current occupant of the bungalow, a school teacher named Braj Nandan Rai, gladly accepted The Daily Telegraph?s recently purchased paperback edition of Animal Farm as a start.

Beyond that, Anita Gupta, a member of the Association of British Scholars from Jamshedpur, has been asked to acquire any of Orwell?s personal effects for the project.

After writing to the local office of the British Council (without reply), Gupta is to petition the Union ministry of culture and British Council headquarters in New Delhi for donations. Anything from Britain, she said, would also be gratefully received.

?A signboard is not sufficient for a writer of Orwell?s stature,? she said. ?I have visited Stratford-upon-Avon and the houses of Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott. I would like to think we could achieve something on those lines.?