WWilliam McKay Aitken is a Scottish born, naturalized Indian travel writer and a mountain lover. He is the author of a number of books about India, its mountains, 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 of 'Footloose in the Himalayas', where he manages to locate and describe a packet of the famous Berinag tea 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 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)
WChandrakant Keshavlal Bakshi was a Gujarati author from Gujarat, India and a former Sheriff of Mumbai. He was known for his bold and new concepts in writing during his time in Gujarati literature. He is also addressed as Bakshi or Bakshibabu. Born in Palanpur, he completed higher education and had a business in Calcutta. He started writing there and later moved to Mumbai for his teaching career. He wrote 178 books, and wrote extensively in newspaper columns.
WAswathy Thirunal Gowri Lakshmi Bayi of the former Travancore Royal Family is a noted writer from Kerala. She has ten books to her credit.
WChandan Biswas is a Bengali Adventure sports personnel and Travel Writer. He became the first to complete the Solo Trans-Himalaya Cycling Expedition.
WRamnath Biswas was an Indian revolutionary, soldier, globetrotter and travelogue writer. He is known for circumnavigating the globe by bicycle.
WPalanganda T. Bopanna is an author and journalist from Kodagu (Coorg) in Karnataka, India. Bopanna has worked for some of the leading Indian English dailies, including The Times of India, Bangalore, for 12 years, and The Pioneer, as their Special Correspondent (Bangalore) for 13 years. He has written five books.
WDilip D'Souza is a Mumbai-based writer and journalist. He writes about social and political causes. His columns have appeared in The Sunday Observer, Rediff.com, Outlook, Mid-Day, Hindustan Times, indiatogether.org, The Caravan and other publications.
WWilliam Dalrymple is a Scottish historian and writer, art historian and curator, as well as a broadcaster and critic. His books have won numerous awards and prizes, including the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Hemingway, the Kapuściński and the Wolfson Prizes. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.
WPravin Darji is Gujarati essayist, poet, critic and editor from India. Spand (1976), Charvana (1976), Dayarama (1978) and Pratyagra (1978) are some of his known works. He was awarded Padma Shri in 2011.
WManoj Das is an Indian author who writes in Odia and English. In 2000, Manoj Das was awarded with Saraswati Samman. He was awarded Padma Shri in 2001, the fourth-highest Civilian Award in India, Padma Bhusan in 2020, the third highest Civilian Award in India for his contribution in the field of Literature & Education.
WNabaneeta Dev Sen was an Indian writer and academic. After studying arts and comparative literature, she moved to US where she studied further. She returned to India and taught at several universities and institutes as well as served on various positions in literary institutes. She published more than 80 books in Bengali: poetry, novels, short stories, plays, literary criticism, personal essays, travelogues, humour writing, translations and children's literature. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999.
WSavitri Devi Mukherji was a French-born proponent of Nazism who served the Axis powers by committing espionage on the forces of the Allies of World War II in India. She was later a leading member of the Nazi underground during the 1960s.
WEnugula Viraswamayya or Enugula Viraswami Telugu scholar, writer and traveller. He was a prominent Telugu Niyogi Brahmin. He wrote "Kasi Yatra Charitra" Travelogue in Telugu about his pilgrimage to Varanasi. The book was first published in 1838, again in 1869 (Madras). This is the first remarkable travelogue published in Telugu. This book written in the form of daily letters by the author to his friend Srinivasa Pillai at Komateawarapuram, narrates the salient aspects of his pilgrimage. It is written in colloquial language and was printed thrice in 1838, 1869 and 1941. It brings out the ethos, customs and traditions of ancient India.
WLi Gotami Govinda was an Indian painter, photographer, writer and composer. She was also skilled in ballet and stagecraft. She gained fame with her conversion to Mahayana Buddhism and travels in Tibet.
WMilind Gunaji is an Indian actor, model, television show host, and author, most known for his roles in Marathi and Hindi cinema. He made his first film appearance in 1993's Papeeha and has since performed in over 250 films and acted as the host of the Zee Marathi channel travel show Bhatkanti. Gunaji has served as the Government of Maharashtra's brand ambassador for forest and wildlife. Currently he is the brand ambassador for Hill Station Mahabaleshwar.
WKarabi Deka Hazarika is an Indian writer. She was born in the small coal mining township of Borjan in the Indian state of Nagaland. Her father, Minakanta Hazarika, was a doctor who spent most of his life serving the poor in the Naga hills. A great Assamese literary author, Atul Chandra Hazarika was her maternal uncle who later became Karabi's chief source of literary inspiration. Born amidst the green hills, lush forests and rivers instilled an early love and awe for nature in her that is echoed in her literary works in later years, especially her poems.
WMīrzā Muḥammad I'tiṣām al-Dīn Pãchnūrī,, or Itesham Uddin was a Mughal diplomat and the first educated Indian and Bengali to travel to Europe, in 1765. He was also a munshi serving the Nawabs of Bengal as well as the East India Company. He had also written the text of the 1765 Treaty of Allahabad.
WGoruru Ramaswamy Iyengar (1904–1991), popularly known as Goruru, was an Indian writer who wrote in Kannada. He was well known for his humour and satire.
WDattatreya Balkrishna Kalelkar, popularly known as Kaka Kalelkar, was an Indian independence activist, social reformer, journalist and an eminent follower of the philosophy and methods of Mahatma Gandhi.
WBinod Kanungo is a renowned Odia author, freedom fighter, Gandhian, educator, social reformer and celebrated compiler of the Gyana Mandala, which is the greatest encyclopaedia in the Odia language. He also won the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award for his travelogue Runa Parishodha (1983). He was also a veteran freedom fighter and notable educationist. He was awarded with India's fourth highest civilian honour "Padmashree". He died on 22 June 1990.
WBhadant Anand Kausalyayan was a Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller and a prolific writer from India. He is considered as one of the great activists of Buddhism of the 20th century. He was influenced by the Buddhist scholar and social reformer Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan and B. R. Ambedkar.
WU. A. Khader is an Indian author. He has published in Malayalam, including novels, novellas, short stories, travelogues and non-fiction. His works have been translated to various languages including English, Hindi and Kannada.
WMirza Abu Taleb Khan was an Indian tax-collector and administrator of Iranian stock, notable for a memoir of his travels in Britain, Europe and Asia Minor, Masir Talib fi Bilad Afranji, written between circa 1799 and 1805.
WSheikh Din Muhammad was an Indian traveller, surgeon, entrepreneur, and one of the most notable early non-European immigrants to the Western World. Due to his foreign origin, his name is often spelled in various ways. He introduced Indian cuisine and shampoo baths to Europe, where he offered therapeutic massage. He was also the first Indian to publish a book in English.
WChandravadan Chimanlal Mehta, popularly known as C. C. Mehta or Chan. Chi. Mehta, was a Gujarati playwright, theatre critic, bibliographer, poet, story writer, autobiographer, travel writer and broadcaster from Vadodara, Gujarat, India.
WPankaj Mishra is an Indian essayist and novelist.
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WShibli Nomani was an Islamic scholar from the Indian subcontinent during British Raj. He was born at Bindwal in Azamgarh district of present-day Uttar Pradesh. He is known for the founding of the Shibli National College in 1883 and the Darul Mussanifin in Azamgarh. Shibli was a scholar in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu. He was also a poet. He collected much material on the life of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad but could write only first two volumes of the planned work the Sirat-un-Nabi. His disciple, Sulaiman Nadvi, made use of this material and added to it and also wrote remaining five volumes of the work, the Sirat-un-Nabi after the death of his mentor.
WBholabhai Patel was an Indian Gujarati author. He taught numerous languages at Gujarat University and did comparative studies of literature in different languages. He translated extensively and wrote essays and travelogues. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2008.
WDr. Shekhar Pathak is an Indian historian, writer and academician from Uttarakhand. He is the founder of People's Association for Himalaya Area Research (PAHAR), established in 1983, former professor of History at Kumaun University, Nainital and a Nehru Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Studies at Teen Murti in New Delhi.
WSankaran Kutty Kunjiraman Pottekkatt, popularly known as S. K. Pottekkatt, was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature and a politician from Kerala, India. He was also a great traveller among the Keralites, who wrote many travelogues for the people who have been unintroduced to the outside world. He was the author of nearly sixty books which include ten novels, twenty-four collections of short stories, three anthologies of poems, eighteen travelogues, four plays, a collection of essays and a couple of books based on personal reminiscences. he was a recipient of Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Novel, Sahitya Akademi Award and the Jnanpith Award. His works have been translated into English, Italian, Russian, German and Czech, besides all major Indian languages.
WS Rajasekharan is a literary critic and poet in the Malayalam language, in India. He was the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit in Kalady, Kerala.
WK. Ravindran (1945–2011), better known by his pen-name Chintha Ravi, was an Indian writer, journalist, film critic and film director.
WBalraj Sahni was an Indian film and stage actor, who is best known for Dharti Ke Lal (1946), Do Bigha Zameen (1953), Chhoti Bahen (1959), Kabuliwala (1961) and Garam Hawa (1973). He was the brother of Bhisham Sahni, noted Hindi writer, playwright, and actor.
WRahul Sankrityayan, is called the Father of Indian Travelogue Travel literature. He is the one who played a pivotal role to give travelogue a 'literature form', was one of the most widely travelled scholars of India, spending forty-five years of his life on travels away from his home.
WPriti Sengupta is a Gujarati poet and writer from Gujarat, India. She received Kumar Suvarna Chandrak in 2006. She has written several travelogues.
WVikram Seth is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. He has received several awards such as Padma Shri, Sahitya Academy Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crossword Book Award. Seth's collections of poetry such as Mappings and Beastly Tales are notable contributions to the Indian English language poetry canon.
WSirdar Ikbal Ali Shah was an Indian-Afghan author and diplomat descended from the Sadaat of Paghman. Educated in India, he came to Britain as a young man to continue his education in Edinburgh, where he married a young Scotswoman.
WVijay Ramanlal Shastri is an Indian Gujarati language short story writer, novelist, critic and translator. He was educated and worked at the M. T. B. Arts College in Surat and has written more than two hundred short stories in addition to several works of criticism.
WKishorsinh Hinduji Solanki is a Gujarati poet and novelist from Gujarat, India. He is an editor of Shabdasar, a Gujarati literary magazine.
WShashi Tharoor is an Indian politician, writer and former international diplomat who has been serving as Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, since 2009. He was formerly Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and contested for the post of Secretary-General in 2006.
WYashpal was a Hindi-language author, who is sometimes considered to be the poor man’s Premchand. A political commentator and a socialist, he wrote in a range of genres, including essays, novels and short stories, as well as a play, two travel books and an autobiography. He won the Hindi-language Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel, Meri Teri Uski Baat in 1976 and was also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan.