see page history
Bill Aitken, born William McKay Aitken, is a Scottish born Indian author, who traveled extensively throughout the expanse of India and has written numerous books on his travels.
From http://www.woodstock.ac.in/MussoorieWriters/Pages/participants.html:
Bill Aitken was born in Clackmannanshire Scotland (1934), attended Handsworth Grammar School in Birmingham (where his class teacher was Bernice Reubens) and studied Comparative Religion at Leeds University (where he was a fresher with Wole Soyinka.) In 1959 he hitchhiked overland to India to study Hinduism, liked what he found and stayed on. From 1960 to 1972 he lived in Himalayan ashrams until, convinced by his guru that there is no difference between nirvana and samsara, he settled in Mussoorie to enjoy a bit of both. His neighbour Ruskin Bond was then a magazine editor and appointed Bill as mss. rejections assistant, thus ensuring a painless transition to the realities of being a mofussil freelance writer. Armed with a motorbike and typewriter and inspired by Steve Alter`s itineraries, Aitken has since 1992 contributed five titles to the Penguin India list including three travelogues (Seven Sacred Rivers, Riding the Ranges and Branch Line to Eternity); two travel books for Oxford University Press India (Exploring Indian Railways and Divining the Deccan); three studies on the Himalaya (Nanda Devi Affair, Footloose in the Himalaya and Touching Upon the Himalaya) as well as a biography of the modern saint Sri Sathya Sai Baba. His favourite author is Anthony Trollope and his favourite book, Jon Krakauer`s Into Thin Air.
Overview edit
Bibliography
-
Footloose in the Himalaya
-
Divining the Deccan
-
Branch Line to Eternity
-
Travels by a lesser line
-
Exploring Indian Railways (Oxford India Paperbacks)
Unbound edit
This content section has been deprecated.
Please help us clean up the page by moving the content from this section into other relevant sections. Once it has been emptied this section will no longer appear on the page but the edit history will still be available in the page's history.
Bill Aitken, born William McKay Aitken, is a Scottish born Indian author, who traveled extensively throughout the expanse of India and has written numerous books on his travels.
From http://www.woodstock.ac.in/MussoorieWriters/Pages/participants.html:
Bill Aitken was born in Clackmannanshire Scotland (1934), attended Handsworth Grammar School in Birmingham (where his class teacher was Bernice Reubens) and studied Comparative Religion at Leeds University (where he was a fresher with Wole Soyinka.) In 1959 he hitchhiked overland to India to study Hinduism, liked what he found and stayed on. From 1960 to 1972 he lived in Himalayan ashrams until, convinced by his guru that there is no difference between nirvana and samsara, he settled in Mussoorie to enjoy a bit of both. His neighbour Ruskin Bond was then a magazine editor and appointed Bill as mss. rejections assistant, thus ensuring a painless transition to the realities of being a mofussil freelance writer. Armed with a motorbike and typewriter and inspired by Steve Alter`s itineraries, Aitken has since 1992 contributed five titles to the Penguin India list including three travelogues (Seven Sacred Rivers, Riding the Ranges and Branch Line to Eternity); two travel books for Oxford University Press India (Exploring Indian Railways and Divining the Deccan); three studies on the Himalaya (Nanda Devi Affair, Footloose in the Himalaya and Touching Upon the Himalaya) as well as a biography of the modern saint Sri Sathya Sai Baba. His favourite author is Anthony Trollope and his favourite book, Jon Krakauer`s Into Thin Air.
