Benjamin Walker (author) facts for kids

Benjamin Walker (born November 25, 1913 – died July 30, 2013) was a British author. He was born in India and wrote many books about religion and philosophy. He also knew a lot about esoteric topics, which are things that are usually only known by a small group of people. His full name was George Benjamin Walker, and he sometimes used the pen name Jivan Bhakar.

Early Life and Family

Benjamin Walker was born in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) in India. His father was Dr. Simeon Benjamin Walker, a doctor, and his mother was Mary Emily Fordyce. Both of his parents were from Pune, India.

His Parents' Work

Benjamin's father, Simeon Walker (1873–1928), did a lot of good work helping people in India. He started a study center called The Hall of Literature, Science and Hygiene in 1900. Sadly, this building burned down in 1902. Thousands of books and old writings were lost. Simeon also worked in education and met important political leaders who helped prepare the way for Mahatma Gandhi. Simeon believed in peace and was against war.

Benjamin's mother, Emily Walker (1888–1975), became a doctor in England. She wanted to help Indian women, who often felt uncomfortable being treated by male doctors. While in London, she joined the Suffragette movement. This group fought for women's right to vote. Emily met Emmeline Pankhurst, a famous leader of the Suffragettes.

Simeon and Emily married in 1906. They moved back to India in 1910 and settled in Calcutta. They opened a clinic where poor people could get free medical care and medicine one day a week. Benjamin was their fourth child. He had an older sister, Reema Rose, and two older brothers, Alexander and William.

Education and Learning

George Benjamin Walker was born in Calcutta on November 25, 1913. He finished school at the Calcutta Boys' School in 1929. He was very good at English and Urdu. When he was at school, he was a keen Boy Scout and a Patrol Leader in his troop. This experience helped him later when he took an advanced leadership course.

After school, he went to St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, a Jesuit college. He earned his first degree there in 1933, doing very well in English and Philosophy. He then went to Calcutta University for his master's degree in English. Many years later, in 1989, he received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from a university in New Delhi. This is a special degree given to people who have achieved a lot.

Views on Religion

Benjamin's mother was a strong Christian. She agreed to marry his father only if their children were raised as Christians. His father, Simeon, was a humanist, a rationalist, and an agnostic. This means he believed in human values and reason, and he wasn't sure if God existed. But he agreed to his wife's condition. He also made sure his children could read any book in his large library. Many of these books were critical of religion.

Career Journey

In 1937, Benjamin Walker started working for the British government in Bushire, which is in South Iran. He worked as an assistant to the British official in charge of the Persian Gulf area. During this time, he traveled a lot and gathered information for a book he wrote about Iran.

In 1943, he was sent to Meshed, a city in Iran near the borders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Here, he helped manage the transport of supplies for the war to the Russian front. In Meshed, he met and married Xenia Dagmar Andrea Stevens-Williams in 1945. She was British-born with Russian heritage. She knew many languages, which was very helpful for his work. She also translated official documents for the British government. They did not have any children.

After the war ended in 1945, Walker started working for the new independent government of India. He worked in different important roles. He was in the Central Cipher Bureau in New Delhi, which deals with secret codes. He also supervised a division that covered areas like Bhutan, Sikkim, and Tibet. Later, he worked in the East Asia division, dealing with countries from Korea and Japan down to Vietnam. He also served as a diplomat in various countries.

From 1955, he worked with the Indian Military Mission in Berlin, Germany. While there, he was asked to teach English classes to German adults.

In April 1968, Walker retired early in Middlesex, England. He wanted to spend all his time writing. He used the name Benjamin Walker for his books. To keep his identity a bit secret, he also often wrote under the name Jivan Bhakar. This name sounded Indian and was a clever way to use his own name, G. Ben Walker.

His Writings and Other Works

Plays

Walker wrote a three-act play called The Love Drug. It was performed in Calcutta in 1930, and he even acted in it himself! The money raised went to charity. Local newspapers gave it good reviews, but Benjamin felt he wasn't really meant to be a playwright or an actor.

Short Stories

One of Walker's short stories, "Shanti," was published in a magazine in India in 1950. He wrote it using his pen name, Jivan Bhakar, and it won him a prize. Another story, "Kismet," was also published in a magazine.

Poetry

Benjamin Walker wrote his first poem when he was only 10 years old. It was about the Great Fire of London in 1666 and was published in his school magazine. He kept writing poetry as an adult, sharing his feelings about the world. Some of his poems appeared in magazines in London and America. A collection of his poems was published in Calcutta in 1956, called Mixed Blood. For a short time, he was known as a minor Indian poet.

Articles

Walker wrote many articles about Eastern cultures and other interesting topics for magazines, newspapers, and books. Between 1948 and 1950, he regularly wrote for Shankar's Weekly under the name Jivan Bhakar. This magazine was known as the 'Indian Punch' because it was like the famous funny magazine from London. The founder of the magazine, K. Shankara Pillai, told Walker that Prime Minister Pandit Nehru enjoyed his articles. Walker wrote over 250 articles on many different subjects, like:

• "In praise of Wordsworth"
• "The decline of freedom"
• "Unemployment in Calcutta"
• "Rock 'n' roll in the army"

Lectures

After studying psychology in college, Walker was invited to give a talk about it to a women's club in Calcutta in 1934. He was nervous at first, but soon he had everyone's full attention. Because it was so successful, he was asked to give another talk. This time, he chose to speak about the poet Wordsworth and other Romantic poets like Coleridge and Keats.

From then on, he continued to give talks. Even during his official government service, he gave unofficial lectures wherever he was stationed. He spoke about many topics, including religion, philosophy, psychology, history, and English literature. He always avoided talking about politics, as he never really liked it.

Editor Work

In 1950, while in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Walker met René de Berval, a French writer and journalist. René was the editor of France Asie, a French magazine about Asian studies. Walker convinced him to start an English magazine, which they called Asia. With some help, they got financial support, and the magazine was published. René de Berval was the main editor, and Walker was the co-editor, using his pen name Jivan Bhakar.

Asia quickly became very popular. It tried to cover the whole continent of Asia and had articles from famous experts. It soon had more readers than the French magazine.

In 1951, Walker took a short trip to Hanoi to help the Indian consul set up an exhibition of Indian art. While there, a French general personally thanked Walker for helping French interests through Asia, even though that wasn't the magazine's main goal.

Asia did not last long after Walker moved to a new job two years later. René de Berval offered him a much higher salary to stay, but Walker turned it down. He felt he couldn't stay in Saigon. Also, many people saw that the political situation in Vietnam was getting worse. The offer to continue with Asia was made again when the magazine moved to Tokyo, but Walker still declined.

Hindu World

Hindu World is considered Benjamin Walker's most important work. It was the first encyclopedia to cover Hinduism in all its different forms. An Indian playwright, S.S. Chauhan, was inspired by the book to write a play about the unfairness of the caste system. His wife, Vijaya Chauhan, also wrote a novel on the same topic because of Hindu World. The book also caught the attention of Pearl Binder, an expert on costume design. She asked Walker for help with her research on Indian tribal clothes and colors.