A revolutionary interval of Indian map making explored at Asiatic Society of Mumbai’s Mapped! exhibition

Sagar Srivastava, 33, has been fascinated by maps ever since he was a younger boy. His father, who’s within the service provider navy, would repeatedly carry house big navigational chartbooks and inform him about international locations around the globe. “I began sketching maps on something I may get my arms on,” the aspiring filmmaker recollects.

Right now, he works as a researcher at a significant Mumbai manufacturing firm, which supplies him the chance to flex his ardour for historical past. Cartography, nonetheless, is a passion Srivastava has needed to nurture in isolation.

In an period the place your cellphone’s GPS can information you to any vacation spot, and even map out alternate routes to account for real-time visitors, many people have forgotten the fun of journey that bodily maps can encourage. Nonetheless, Srivastava was in a position to faucet into a couple of area of interest cartography communities on-line: in the course of the lockdown, he started to put up his sketches on subReddits reminiscent of Geography, World Historical past, and Cartography, the place he acquired a largely constructive response. He repeatedly posts on his weblog, Maps by Sagar, which has 1.7K followers on the time of writing. And he even managed to make some cash promoting his massive scale sketches.

It’s nonetheless a uncommon deal with for him to satisfy like-minded cartography fans in individual. So when the Asiatic Society of Mumbai and Rotary Membership of Bombay introduced Mapped! — a month-long exhibition of 22 archival maps, curated by heritage administration agency PastPerfect and put along with help from the Tata Group — Srivastava was greater than able to make the journey to the erstwhile City Corridor in South Mumbai’s Horniman Circle.  

Tracing the GTS days

 The exhibition highlights maps that have been created as a part of the Nice Trigonometrical Survey (GTS), a scientific enterprise to map and measure the subcontinent launched in 1802, and the Bombay Income Survey, a income mapping and concrete planning initiative undertaken within the 1860s. “It offers with ideas of accuracy, and the way that was achieved within the 19th century,” explains PastPerfect co-founder Deepti Anand. “On the time, numerous colonial powers have been at struggle to assert management over territories of the Indian sub-continent — understanding the land-mass was a useful supply for income. So India witnessed essentially the most superior mapping methodologies on the earth. Mapped! explores every thing from how they achieved these ranges of accuracy, to the tales of the folks that made it occur.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks, walkthroughs, and even a map-led treasure hunt. “The way in which geography is taught in faculties doesn’t go into the nuances of why one thing exists the place it does,” shares Ashwin Tahiliani, city designer and founding father of geography-inspired artwork collective ATLASkeeda, who was invited to conduct a storytelling session in regards to the GTS. “Our goal is to make clear the lesser-known histories throughout the nation.”

Riaz Dean, scholar and creator of Mapping the Nice Recreation, additionally led a public discuss in regards to the Survey of India, increasing on one forgotten group, the Pundits, who undertook the key mapping of India’s northern neighbours. “Indians, as devoted staff of the GTS, have been simply as accountable for mapping their very own nation, although they typically weren’t given due credit score as the main target on the time was totally on the British officers of the GTS,” Dean shares. “Native Indians included sub-assistant surveyors, khalasis [survey helpers], and the Pundits. For instance, the best-known Pundit, Nain Singh, continues to be comparatively unknown on this nation and but the well-known Orientalist Sir Henry Yuletide as soon as mentioned of him: “His observations have added a bigger quantity of vital information to the map of Asia than these of any dwelling man.”

Outdoors of the exhibition, the Asiatic Society has now begun making digital copies of all 1,600 maps in its archive accessible to view on its digital portal, Granth Sanjeevani.

Rekindling curiosity

Like all specialised pursuits, cartography continues to be a distinct segment passion, however over time quite a lot of establishments have tried to protect India’s mapmaking legacy.

Since 2015, Bengaluru-based mechanical engineer Udaya Kumar has been travelling throughout the nation in an try to boost consciousness in regards to the Nice Trigonometrical Survey and protect the stone posts and different benchmark factors that also stay. In 2019 in Pune, native corporator Arvind Shinde and architect Abhijit Kondhalkar restored the uncared for ‘zero stone’ exterior the GPO to its authentic place, and added open-air displays alongside the footpath to showcase the historical past of GTS.

Hyderabad-based Kalakriti Archives’ assortment of historic maps stays one of many largest in India, a few of which is up for public viewing on Google’s Arts and Tradition internet portal. Through the years, maps have additionally been auctioned as artefacts, promoting for something between ₹20,000 and some lakhs, relying on rarity, measurement, situation and cartographer.

Entrepreneur, movie producer and industrial engineer-by-training Mrinal Kapadia, who owns a personal assortment of archival maps, is assured that as establishments put money into extra such choices, public curiosity will proceed to rise. “The occasions hosted by establishments just like the Asiatic Society, or CSMVS, are all being bought out. There’s a big repository of centuries’ value of works on the market, in several components of the nation, ready to be shared. It’s solely a matter of time,” he concludes.

Mapped! is on until June four on the Asiatic Society of Mumbai.

The freelance author and playwright is predicated in Mumbai.