Finally a tourist map for Kolkata

Kolkata: One of the most visited metropolis of India, Kolkata, finally has a tourist map. The last know map was published on Calcutta – as the city was formerly known in 1790. Since then the city has undergone metamorphosis, literally and metaphorically, but no one had bothered.

It took the entreprenureal efforts of Iftekhar Ahsan, city walks operator and railway enthusiast and cartographer Samit Roychoudhury to do the needful. “At first we even could not believe that there isn’t a halfway decent map of the city? I had no expectations from the government but even private players hadn’t done anything. Something basic would do. At least show the attractions and create some idea of the distances.” says Ahsan.

“Putting together a map for a tourist to the city can be a major challenge. Kolkata is a tourist destination like no other which undergoes transformation every minute and more so now. Also this is a heritage city, where the east met west making it a confluence of ideas, considering its colonial heritage and at the same time a certain rigidity amongst its denizens to maintain its uniqueness,” he added.

But this map does much more. It guides tourist to nesting locations of migratory birds, give directions to book shops, indicate street food zones, old age markets and new age shopping malls. It directs tourist to unique eateries, watering holes and places where even the local may not venture regularly.

“This city has the warmth to embrace a visitor as ones own instantly. But for a visitor to feel at home, he or she needs to navigate the labyrinth of the city at a personal pace and get acquainted with its idiosyncrasies,” believes Ahsan.

For Roychoudhury, the challenges were more intriguing. From finding a way to fold the map, to paper sizes, to colour formats, and most importantly the content. “When you initially start, you feel the urge to include everything. But this map is not only about navigating streets, but finding the treasures of the city, and giving the tourist a real feel of Kolkata in its present times, which can easily be overlooked by any visitor. At the same time, it cannot to too big or too colourful,” said Roychoudhury. “There are about 40 museums in this map. Locations of numerous temples, churches and mosques. So through this map we facilitate searching and learning about places, which have been hidden in the historical records. ”

Collating this whole data was quite a task as even best of online maps at times can be erroneous or even ignorant about the city. “Making a map of Kolkata, a city so squashed, was simply too complex. So, we drew the map by hand and in Adobe Illustrator. If you look at the map, flyovers and bridges actually look like flyovers and bridges. Our basic idea was to make map as minimally intimidating and at the same time informative as much as possible,” he added.