M. PRABHAKARAN
The
eldest son of M. Kunjukutty Amma and Govinda Panikker, was
born on 12th August, 1932. Passed his S.S.L.C. from A.V.
High School, Ponnani in the year 1948. Started his service
career with Directorate of Marine Engineering and Training
at Calcutta in 1952 and later joined their Bombay office
as Superintend in 1977. After serving for 31 years, he
left the institution and joined Ministry of Surface
Transport as Personal Secretary to the Chairman, National
Shipping Board and retired on 31st August, 1990.
During
1950s and 1960s he used to translate Bengali novels to
Malayalam and publish them in Mathrubhumi weekly. Along
with that he used to send regular reports on the cultural
and social activities of Malayalees in Calcutta to
Mathrubhumi. Perhaps the most important phase of his
literary career spans 3 decades (1950 tp 1970) when he
used to write reviews for Bengali films. He had in fact
introduced Bengali cinema to the Malayalees. The reviews
of films by Minal Sen, Tapan Sinha, Sathyajit Ray and
Ritwik Ghatak were considered his important contributions.
He
was actively involved in the Malayalee associations of
Calcutta. He was the Jt. Secretary of Calcutta Malayalee
Samajam in the 50s and later on President of the Calcutta
Sahitya Vedhi.
He
married Sundari, daughter of P.M.G. Nair and Janaki Amma
on 6th September 1962 and is settled in Hyderabad. They
have two daughters, Chitra and Deepa, both of them
married. |