A cartographer's horde

Cosmology to Cartography, currently on at Delhi's National Museum, marks two firsts. It is the first exhibition where the overwhelming bulk of the exhibits come from a private collection, the Kalakriti Archive in Hyderabad. It is also the first exhibition of maps at the National Museum. And what a world they have opened up for the hordes trooping in and peering through the magnifying glasses at the small print, the lines, squiggles and notches that signify a landscape that's real as much as it's imaginary.

Fourteen years ago, Prshant Lahoti, who set up the Kalakriti Art Gallery in 2002, had a similar moment of revelation while looking at an old map inside an antiques shop in Edinburgh. He'd walked into the store quite by accident, whiling away time because his train was late. That was the 1790 Faden Wall Map of India, one of the earliest maps showing the south Indian peninsula and Lahoti, a businessman and art collector, bought it — it wasn't expensive, though he doesn't remember how much he paid for it. And so began his fascination with maps. Maps, he says, bring together four things that excite him — history, geography, aesthetic quality and antique mystery.

Lahoti now possesses 3,000 rare, vintage maps. They are broadly of two kinds — one, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist theological maps, and, two, political maps of India from the 18th to the early 20th century. For instance, he has a portfolio of 12 manuscript maps that depict key battlegrounds of the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817-18), which saw the East India Company led by Warren Hastings win a decisive victory over the Maratha Confederacy's army, subjugating almost all of south India under British rule. "I bought it five-six years ago, at an auction in the US for a few thousand dollars," Lahoti reveals, adding that the maps were in a highly distressed condition, else the price would have been as high as $100,000. Lahoti got them restored and they're part of the National Museum show.

While maps are an important hobby worldwide, Lahoti says the market for them is yet to take off as it has for so other classes of antiquities and collectibles such as wine, ceramics, coins, furniture, watches, and books. Besides, there are hardly anyone in India who collects maps. A positive fallout of this is that it's kept prices at comparatively affordable levels - after all, as Lahoti points out, "price depends on demand".

On the flipside, he says, his act of revealing his collection to the world through this large, very well-received exhibition, has given to maps a new visibility and excitement. "When a dealer knows that something he sold to me for a few thousand dollars showed at the National Museum, he will undoubtedly ask for more. Prices inevitably will go up," says Lahoti.

But Lahoti is not worried. He hopes that the exhibition will induce many to dust up rare and vintage maps in their possession. "That way more maps will come into the market and more of them will survive," he says. As for his own collection, Lahoti's plans a museum to house it. But that's a retirement plan. For now, Lahoti is planning a trip to Paris in November for the map fair. There are map dealers who might have more treasures for him.