Bill Aitken (writer)
{{Short description|British-Indian writer (1934–2025)}}
{{Sources exist|date=October 2019}}
{{EngvarB|date=April 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Bill Aitken
| image = Bill Aitken 2012.JPG
| imagesize = 250px
| caption = Aitken at his Mussoorie home, 2012
| birth_date = {{birth date|1934|5|31||df=y}}
| birth_place = Tullibody, Scotland
| death_date = {{death date and age|2025|4|16|1934|5|31|df=y}}
| death_place = Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
| occupation = Traveller, writer
| nationality = {{ubl|British (1934–1972)|Indian (1972–2025)}}
| period = 1975–2025
| movement =
| influences =
| influenced =
| signature =
| website =
}}
William McKay Aitken (31 May 1934 – 16 April 2025) was a British-born Indian travel writer and mountain enthusiast.{{Cite web|url=http://www.mussooriewriters.com/2012/05/25/bill-aitken/|title=Bill Aitken |publisher=Mussoorie Writers |date=16 April 2015|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150416213159/http://www.mussooriewriters.com/2012/05/25/bill-aitken/|archive-date=16 April 2015}}{{cite web |url=http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/251215166.cms |title=Rail tourism needs to be put on track |work=The Times of India |first=Maneesh |last=Pandey |date=28 July 2001 |accessdate=16 July 2008}} He was the author of a number of books about India, its mountains, rivers and its steam trains.{{cite web | url=http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?230659 |title = The Accidental Expatriate}}
Life and career
Aitken was born in Tullibody 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. In 1959, he hitchhiked overland to India and taught for a year at Hindi High School in Calcutta. From 1960 to 1972, he lived in Himalayan ashrams at Kausani and Mirtola, where he studied under Sri Krishna Prem. In 1972, he became a naturalised Indian citizen.{{cite book | last=Advani | first=Rukun | title=Written Forever | publisher=Hachette India | date=22 May 2014 | isbn=978-93-5009-783-0 | page=}} 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 of Mussoorie in the Lower Western Himalaya. 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, Uttarakhand, on 16 April 2025, at the age of 90.{{Cite web |last=Saili Bakshi |first=Tania |date=17 April 2025 |title=Mussoorie bids farewell to Author Bill Aitken |url=https://www.newspost.live/en/mussoorie-bids-farewell-bill-aitken/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJtmudleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHnmkyZwDgngw9E0Wn1KYnQWyYANJBZIEIaTV9YN7JiwfO4hzG42aqFOBZ-FQ_aem_M9iqxffxBGbaenjZphzISA |access-date=17 April 2025 |website=News Post |language=en-US}} 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.[https://www.newspost.live/en/mussoorie-bids-farewell-bill-aitken/ Mussoorie bids farewell to Author Bill Aitken]
Works
- Seven Sacred Rivers, 1992 (Penguin Books India), {{ISBN|0-14-015473-6}}
- Divining the Deccan – A Motorbike to the Heart of India, (Oxford, 1999), {{ISBN|0-19-564-7114}}
- Footloose in the Himalaya, (Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003), {{ISBN|81-7824-052-1}}
- The Nanda Devi Affair, 1994 (Penguin Books India), {{ISBN|0-14-024045-4}}
- Touching Upon the Himalaya: Excursions and Enquiries, 2004 (Indus Books, New Delhi, 2004), {{ISBN|81-7387-169-8}}
- Exploring Indian Railways, (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994), {{ISBN|0-19-563109-9}}
- Branch Line to Eternity, 2001 (Penguin Books India), {{ISBN|0-14-100537-8}}
- Sri Sathya Sai Baba – A Life,2004 (Viking/Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.), {{ISBN|0-670-05807-6}}
- Literary Trails (1996), HarperCollins, {{ISBN|81-7223-240-3}}
- Riding the Ranges – Travels on my Motorcycle (1997), Penguin Books India, {{ISBN|0-14-026804-9}}
- Mountain Delight, English Book Depot, Dehradun, (1994), {{ISBN|81-85567-16-6}}
- Travels By a Lesser Line, HarperCollins, (1993), {{ISBN|81-7223-086-9}}
- Zanskar, 1999, Rupa Classic India, {{ISBN|81-7167-199-3}}
- 1000 Himalayan Quiz, 1995, Rupa, {{ISBN|81-7167-290-6}}
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- [https://archive.today/20130203224155/http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030411/asp/opinion/story_1863653.asp Review of Footloose in the Himalaya By Bill Aitken, The Telegraph (India), April 11, 2003 |]
- [http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/251215166.cms Maneesh Pandey. Rail tourism needs to be put on track. The Times of India, 28 Jul 2001.] Quotes Aitken as a travel writer.
- {{cite news|url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-18200583_ITM|title=Silhouettes. Brief review of Sri Sathya Sai Baba: A Life|date=13 December 2004|work=The Statesman (India)|accessdate=16 July 2008}}
External links
- [http://www.shelfari.com/authors/126746/Bill-Aitken/summary Shelfari – Bill Aitken]
- [http://www.souljourns.net/index.php/videos/videos-on-youtube/504-souljourns-bill-aitkin-sai-baba Souljourns interview] – An Interview With Bill Aitken About Sathya Sai Baba
{{Sathya Sai Baba}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Aitken, Bill}}
Category:Writers from Dehradun
Category:Indian travel writers
Category:Scottish travel writers
Category:Scottish emigrants to India
Category:Naturalised citizens of India
Category:Indian people of Scottish descent
Category:20th-century British writers
Category:20th-century Indian writers
Category:21st-century Indian writers