03 August,2025 07:53 AM IST | Mumbai | Arpika Bhosale
Deepti Anand studies historical maps and explains their relevance and history of the markings. PIC/ATUL KAMBLE
Have you ever used Google Maps and found yourself driving round in circles because you followed the app blindly despite knowing there's a more straightforward route? We cannot blame technology for these accidents - after all, a good carpenter doesn't blame his tools. In fact, it's all too easy to relate to the woman who drove her Audi into Belapur creek while following Google Maps last week. It's a grim reminder of our increasing dependence on technology to navigate everyday life, and how it comes at the cost of losing our internal compass.
"We take Google Maps as gospel truth," rues Kim Sabir, yachtsman and co-founder of Adventure Breaks, an outdoor company in Goa that specialises in trekking, kayaking, coast steering, camping, sailing⦠well, you get the drift. Sabir doesn't have an axe to grind against GPS apps, but he does feel that becoming overly reliant on them stops people from keeping their eyes and ears open for "everything in life". "Map apps are really excellent tools for people to sail, explore new places, and navigate a city. The fact that you don't need to stop and ask for directions is great, but that doesn't mean that you should stop doing it completely," he adds.
Have you ever got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water from the kitchen, only to stumble around in the dark in your own home, banging into the wall, or stubbing your toe against furniture? This points to a lack of spatial awareness, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as the ability to judge the positions and sizes of objects and how to navigate around them. It's a skill we've forgotten to hone because we rarely ever look up from our screens anymore, even to find our way.
Looking up and around is key to orienting yourself in any space, says Sabir. An avid trekker, he explains how, at the beginning of any trek, the leader always turns around to get their bearings and take a mental picture of the starting point, so they can find their way back easily. "You need to know what the route will look like on your way back. Most of the time, gadgets do not work on mountainous terrain, so we often carry physical maps," he says, "That's when having sharp spatial awareness and good memory comes in handy."
"He will have a superb memory for a long, long time," traffic psychologist Anagha Pullangotte says of Sabir. "We need a constant rehearsal of every skill. Otherwise something called de-skilling happens. From a neurobiological perspective, practising something forms a neural connection that helps us recall the skill later. Without that, the neurons can no longer recall it even in an emergency," she explains. But where do these skills come in handy in city life? "I would say, in everything," explains Pullangotte, "Say the electricity is out and you need to go down the emergency stairs. You may have never used it before, but you should at least be able to recall in which direction it lies."
Dhanya Pilo
Filmmaker Dhanya Pilo has been sailing since childhood and was part of the first women-only team that won the round-the-world yachting race, Ocean Globe Race in 2024. Pilo is no stranger to navigating stormy seas, when even technology failed her. "The first storm (Gale Storm) in which I was stuck was off the coast of Kerala. It was 11 pm at night, and since it was raining like crazy we had no visibility, we switched off all our systems and devices including the engine, brought down the sails - all we could do was to put on our life jackets and tether ourselves to the boat. We just had to wait it out; the key is to not panic," she recalls.
Despite that, she is grateful for technology. "We have a tendency to romanticise the older ways of navigation but, honestly, we should keep in mind that technology has helped us tremendously." Without technology, it's harder to get an exact read on your whereabouts on the open sea, but it's still crucial to develop old-school skills such as reading weather patterns. "So even if you don't know where you are, you can read what is happening with the atmosphere around you and gauge whether it's safe to move or not," she says. Map reading and drawing - skills that once connected India to the world during the Silk Route era, when the port city of Bombay grew in consequence - have become dying arts in this age.
Deepti Anand counts among the few who still dedicate time and effort to understand this art that formed the basis for the GPS apps that we now enjoy at our fingertips. Deepti, the co-founder of Past Perfect Heritage Management, an agency dedicated to archiving, research, and historical storytelling, has been working extensively with archival maps, curating exhibitions in collaboration with the Asiatic Society of Mumbai and the Rotary Club of Bombay. "When reading travelogues and tales from the 15th and the 16th centuries, you start looking at the geography around you very differently," she says. "Kutchi sailors would note down all their observations in their logs, explaining how to navigate the deep seas. That level of calculation and estimation tied to geographical discovery and exploration is almost beyond our imagination today. I've seen maps where various parts of India are just blank because the mapmakers didn't know what was there [at the time]," she says.
Deepti feels that the backbone of mapping lies in the lost art of observation. "Today, we just put a location on the map app and head out, staring at the blue or red lines showing traffic movement," she says. But do we look up and pay attention to where we are anymore? Blind dependence on GPS can lead to a narrow view of our surroundings, rather than a complete understanding of where we are, what's in front of or behind us. How many of us still retain a mental map of the city that can help us find an alternative route if we're stuck in traffic at, say, Juhu Circle?
"I think we look at what is around us on the basis of our objective of the outing. But I don't think that counts as observation," Deepti says. When Ruchita Madhok was in Class 3, her teacher set out with 200 students in the bylanes of Mahim, where the school was located. On their return, she asked them to draw a map of the locality. "The impact of that one exercise started my love affair with maps for a lifetime," she chuckles over the phone.
Now a graphic designer and co-founder of design studio Kahani Designworks, Madhok redesigns maps of neighbourhoods in the city and suburbs under the studio's publishing imprint, Storycity. "Maps are no longer needed for their original purpose: finding new places or creating new trade routes. Our maps now are perspective-based," she adds.
The walking maps made by Madhok and her team, for instance, trace routes to explore four neighbourhoods. "They are easy-to-follow maps for self-guided walks," she explains, "We also have a project called Hidden in Plain Sight Art Deco in Mumbai, which illustrates neighbourhoods, junctions, and streets in Mumbai and helps the viewer identify Art Deco structures there."
Where pocket maps were once a tourist's best friend, now most people lack the skill to decipher basic trails, Madhok laments. "When Bhau Daji Lad Museum was first renovated, we had made maps to help visitors navigate the galleries. But there was no visual literacy; people would ask if a box on the map was depicting a door or something else. So we ended up making a 3D drawing so that they could orient themselves in relation to the displays, the pillars, and other three-dimensional structures," she adds.
Feeling lost yet? Don't worry, there's a silver lining. The brain is just like any other muscle in the body, and the more we exercise it, the better off our thinking muscles will fare. So the next time you're heading out and have some time on your hands, switch off your GPS app and try and find your way through the city the old-school way. Trust us, your brain will thank you.
A lost cognitive skill
"As our dependence on GPS and navigation apps grows, the brain's natural ability to form cognitive maps - our internal sense of direction - is gradually eroding. The hippocampus, which plays a central role in spatial memory, thrives on active navigation and decision-making. But when we outsource that to technology, we dull our innate orientation skills. It's crucial to remember that while tech can guide us, it shouldn't override common sense or environmental awareness. Blind trust in a screen can sometimes lead us straight into a ditch - literally."
- Dr Mazda Turel, neurosurgeon
âNo route recall'
Anupam Dubey
"People no longer recall even roads they have driven on because everyone looks at Google Maps. Drivers no longer recall landmarks, or routes. Even when you give people directions, they are unable to follow long instructions; they often say, âTell me where to take the next two turns, and then I will ask someone else for the further route'."
- Anupam Dubey, driving instructor
Can it help stave off Alzheimer's disease?
In London, UK, taxi drivers are only licensed on clearing a notoriously difficult test of "the Knowledge", which requires memorising thousands of streets in the city. A study by the University College London found that when taxi drivers trained in the Knowledge, the hippocampus region of their brain got larger. This is the very region that shrinks in patients with Alzheimer's, and new research is now studying London's black cab taxi drivers in a bid to get more clues on the disease.
Did you know?
There's a sport built around the twin talents of navigation and map reading: Orienteering. It involves racing on foot in unfamiliar terrain guided by nothing other than a topographical map and a compass. The sport has been around for decades in Europe and the UK, but is still in a nascent stage in India, where the Orienteering Federation of India held the maiden national championship in Mumbai last year.
