Английская Википедия:Bill Aitken (writer)

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William McKay Aitken is a Scottish-born Indian travel writer and mountain lover. He is the author of a number of books about India, its mountains, rivers and its steam trains.

Born in Tullibody in Clackmannanshire, Scotland in 1934, Aitken attended Handsworth Grammar School in Birmingham, and completed his M.A in comparative religion at the University of Leeds. In 1959, he hitchhiked overland to India and taught for a year at Hindi HighSchool in Calcutta. From 1960 to 1972, he lived in Himalayan ashrams at Kausani and Mirtola. 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 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 in the Lower Western Himalaya. 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), Шаблон:ISBN
• Divining the Deccan - A Motorbike to the Heart of India, (Oxford, 1999), Шаблон:ISBN
• Footloose in the Himalaya, (Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003), Шаблон:ISBN
• The Nanda Devi Affair, 1994 (Penguin Books India), Шаблон:ISBN
• Touching Upon the Himalaya: Excursions and Enquiries, 2004 (Indus Books, New Delhi, 2004), Шаблон:ISBN
• Exploring Indian Railways, (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994), Шаблон:ISBN
• Branch Line to Eternity, 2001 (Penguin Books India), Шаблон:ISBN
• Sri Sathya Sai Baba - A Life,2004 (Viking/Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.), Шаблон:ISBN
• Literary Trails (1996), HarperCollins (Шаблон:ISBN)
• Riding the Ranges - Travels on my Motorcycle (1997), Penguin Books India, (Шаблон:ISBN)
• Mountain Delight, English Book Depot, Dehradun, (1994) (Шаблон:ISBN)
• Tavels By a Lesser Line, HarperCollins, (1993) (Шаблон:ISBN)
• Zanskar, 1999, Rupa Classic India, (Шаблон:ISBN)
• 1000 Himalayan Quiz, 1995, Rupa (Шаблон:ISBN)

Further reading

• Review of Footloose in the Himalaya By Bill Aitken, The Telegraph (India), April 11, 2003 |
• Maneesh Pandey. Rail tourism needs to be put on track. The Times of India, 28 Jul 2001. Quotes Aitken as a travel writer.
• Шаблон:Cite news

External links

• Shelfari – Bill Aitken
• Souljourns interview - An Interview With Bill Aitken About Sathya Sai Baba