William McKay Aitken is a Scottish-born

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

travel writer The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern per ...

and mountain lover. He is the author of a number of books about India, its

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...

s, rivers and its steam trains. His books are well loved because of their playful spirit and investigative attention to detail. For example, he demonstrates this in (page 122) of 'Footloose in the Himalayas', where he manages to locate and describe a packet of the famous

Berinag tea Berinag Tea was a highly sought-after tea in London tea houses, As documented by William McKay Aitken and famed man of taste Laurie Baker. Berinag Tea estate was bought from Kedar Dutt Pant by Thakur Dan Singh Bist (also spelled "Bisht"). It wa ...

with its logo from the 1930s. He thus preserves it in history with his words. Even as he drives through the tea estates of

Dan Singh Bist Thakur Dan Singh Bisht (1906 – 10 September 1964) was a philanthropist from Kumaon, Uttarakhand, India. At its height, his massive timber depots with attendant offices and bungalows for managers extended across the Himalayas from Lahore to ...

he calls him by his local nickname 'maldar' and adroitly describes the unique taste of Chinese tea on Indian soil and its logo which has an Berinag girl in Chinese dress.page no.(252) Born in

Tullibody Tullibody ( gd, Tulach Bòide), is a town set in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies north of the River Forth near to the foot of the Ochil Hills within the Forth Valley. The town is south-west of Alva, north-west of Alloa and east-n ...

Clackmannanshire Clackmannanshire (; sco, Clackmannanshire; gd, Siorrachd Chlach Mhannainn) is a historic county, council area, registration county and Lieutenancy area in Scotland, bordering the council areas of Stirling, Fife, and Perth & Kinross and the ...

, Scotland in 1934, Aitken attended

Handsworth Grammar School King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys, formerly and commonly Handsworth Grammar School, is a grammar school that admits boys from the age of eleven (as well as girls in the sixth form, since September 1997). The school was founded i ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

, and completed his M.A in comparative religion at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. In 1959, he hitchhiked overland to India and taught for a year at Hindi HighSchool in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

. From 1960 to 1972, he lived in Himalayan ashrams at Kausani and

Mirtola Mirtola is a village 10 km away from Almora, in Uttarakhand state in India. It is best known for an ashram by the same name, also called Uttar Brindaban (" Brindaban of the North"), set up by Sri Yashoda Ma, a housewife turned ascetic in th ...

. In 1972, he became a naturalized Indian citizen. With their Guru's blessings he joined Prithwi Bir Kaur, the dowager Maharani of the erstwhile Sikh Princely state of Jind as companion. Based in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

and Mussoorie, Aitken travelled widely in India, covering the religious landscape in a dozen travel books. Bill Aitken's writings are characterized by a free-wheeling description of his travels, interspersed with intimate details of the land and its people, and their religious beliefs. He has been President of the Friends of the National Rail Museum in New Delhi and hon. Librarian of the Himalayan Club. Since the 1970s, he has lived in the hill station of

Mussoorie Mussoorie is a hill station and a municipal board, near Dehradun city in the Dehradun district of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is about from the state capital of Dehradun and north of the national capital of New Delhi. The hill s ...

in the Lower Western

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

. The surrounding region, especially the Garhwal Hills, has provided much of the material for his writings. With the passing of Prithwi Bir Kaur in 2010, he was appointed a trustee of the Maharani Prithwi Jind Memorial Trust till 2014.

Works

*''Seven Sacred Rivers'', 1992 (Penguin Books India), *''Divining the Deccan - A Motorbike to the Heart of India'', (Oxford, 1999), *''Footloose in the Himalaya'', (Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003), *''The Nanda Devi Affair'', 1994 (Penguin Books India), *''Touching Upon the Himalaya: Excursions and Enquiries'', 2004 (Indus Books, New Delhi, 2004), *''Exploring Indian Railways'', (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994), *''Branch Line to Eternity'', 2001 (Penguin Books India), *''Sri Sathya Sai Baba - A Life'',2004 (Viking/Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.), *''Literary Trails'' (1996), HarperCollins () *''Riding the Ranges - Travels on my Motorcycle'' (1997), Penguin Books India, () *''Mountain Delight'', English Book Depot, Dehradun, (1994) () *''Tavels By a Lesser Line'', HarperCollins, (1993) () *''Zanskar'', 1999, Rupa Classic India, () *''1000 Himalayan Quiz'', 1995, Rupa ()

References

External links

Shelfari – Bill AitkenSouljourns interview
- An Interview With Bill Aitken About Sathya Sai Baba {{DEFAULTSORT:Aitken, William Mckay 1934 births Living people Writers from Dehradun People from Stirling Scottish emigrants to India Indian travel writers Indian people of Scottish descent

Works

References

Further reading

External links