William McKay Aitken (31 May 1934 – 16 April 2025) was a British-born Indian travel writer and mountain enthusiast. He was the author of a number of books about India, its mountains, rivers and its steam trains.
Life and career
Aitken was born in
Tullibody
Tullibody () is a village 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 village is southwest of Alva, Clackmannanshire, Alva, northwest of Alloa and ...
in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, in 1934. He attended Handsworth Grammar School in Birmingham and completed an M.A in comparative religion at the
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...
. In 1959, he hitchhiked overland to India and taught for a year at Hindi High School in
Calcutta
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
. From 1960 to 1972, he lived in Himalayan
ashram
An ashram (, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions, not including Buddhism.
Etymology
The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (< Mirtola, where he studied under Sri Krishna Prem. In 1972, he became a naturalised Indian citizen. With the blessings of guru Sri Madhava Ashish he joined Prithwi Bir Kaur, the dowager Maharani of the erstwhile Sikh Princely state of Jind, as a companion. Based in Delhi and Mussoorie, Aitken travelled widely in India, covering the religious landscape in a dozen travel books. His writings are characterised by a free-wheeling description of his travels, interspersed with intimate details of the land and its people and their religious beliefs. He was President of the Friends of the National Rail Museum in New Delhi and hon. Librarian of the Himalayan Club.
From the 1970s until his death in 2025, Aitken lived in the
hill station
A hill station is a touristic town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain or valley. The English term was originally used mostly in Western imperialism in Asia, colonial Asia, but also in Africa (albeit rarely), for towns founded by ...
of
Mussoorie
Mussoorie () is a hill station and a municipal board, in 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 hil ...
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 Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 pea ...
. The surrounding region, especially the Garhwal Hills, provided much of the material for his writings. With the death of Prithwi Bir Kaur in 2010, he was appointed a trustee of the Maharani Prithwi Jind Memorial Trust till 2014.
Aitken died in
Dehradun
Dehradun (), also known as Dehra Doon, is the winter capital and the List of cities in Uttarakhand by population, most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous Dehradun district, d ...
, Uttarakhand, on 16 April 2025, at the age of 90. He had suffered a fall at his home a few days earlier and had been rushed to a medical facility in Dehradun, not far from Mussoorie.Mussoorie bids farewell to Author Bill Aitken /ref>
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),
*''Travels By a Lesser Line'', HarperCollins, (1993),
*''Zanskar'', 1999, Rupa Classic India,
*''1000 Himalayan Quiz'', 1995, Rupa,