Question

Analyse Bill Aitken’s travelogue Travels by a Lesser Line in terms of theme and prose style.

Answer 1

Bill Aitken set out with a simple ambition to see for himself if it was possible to traverse the length and breadth of his adopted country, i.e. India by travelling only on meter gauge trains - 'the choti line.' There is much in India that doesn't work, but the Indian Railways are like the miracles that keep up the dwindling faith of the faithful. It actually happens  - the train that leaves Gauwahati with the improbable intention of  turning up in distant Trivendrum some three days later actually does, more or less on schedule. There must, we infer, be an overseeing intelligence.
With the famous pragmatism of his race - and a contract from The Statesman  Aitkin set about the task of finding the answer to his question in the only possible way, i.e. by doing it.
Aitken, however, lends the travelogue a slightly breathless, hysterical quality to the writing at times which can be attributed to the nature of Indian reality itself. Nevertheless, it is characterized by free-wheeling description of his travel, interspersed with intimate details of the land and its people and their religious beliefs.