A Modern Treasure Map

Discover ancient and historical sites near you. The HeritageTravelerPune app launches this month—stay tuned!

Last year, I, along with some friends, visited Wai for two days. Wai is located in Satara district in the State of Maharashtra. During our free time while there, we decided to do some sightseeing. However, aside from well-known places like Menavali, we weren’t aware of any other place to visit. A casual search for places to see around me on our faithful companion, Google, also did not reveal much more, other than what we already knew. So, we went ahead and visited the same places we had visited a few years back―nothing new to see. I was disappointed when I later learnt that the Laxmi-Nrusinha Mandir, which has a unique Nandi-Mandapa on the back of a turtle sculpture, was located nearby.

All of us may have experienced this disappointment at least once in our lives when we visit an unfamiliar place and regret missing a beautiful temple or monument that was situated nearby. Our everyday life saviour, Google is very useful when providing us with a list of restaurants, hotels, etc. around us. But it is not particularly good when showing us heritage monuments, especially lesser-known ones. And you may be surprised when you learn of the heaps of beautiful monuments that lie hidden in plain sight.

The Wai incident gave me an idea—why shouldn’t there be an app that provides common people access to hidden gems that, so far, have only been known to archaeologists and scholars? It should be user-friendly and convenient. Not everyone travels solely to visit temples and caves, but everyone travels for some reason—be it work, family pilgrimages, trekking, vacations at resorts, etc. During their travels, people often have at least an hour of free time. When in an unfamiliar town or city, they naturally wish to explore something remarkable nearby—especially since they may never visit that place again. For the hundreds of thousands who travel, a smart and convenient app would be the perfect companion.

Depending on the time available, users should be able to search for monuments within a 2-3 km radius or even up to 20-50 km. For those too busy to check their phones, imagine an app that does the work for you—sending notifications when you're near a historical site. Even better, if you're travelling from point A to B, the app could alert you to interesting spots along the way. The best part is, such an app already exists! Currently available for Pune district, it has the potential to expand across the state or even the country, depending on user response.

The sites provided in the app have been personally searched by the creator, who happens to be an archaeologist. So as not to waste the user’s time, each site has been rated by him out of 5. So, a user can pre-decide if the site is worth a visit. For those history enthusiasts and scholars who visit a place just to see its monuments, the app can help too. It will be easier to plan which site to visit―more monuments are always preferable to a single one. The app can help you surf and search. It will have up to nine filters for nine categories of monuments: temples, forts, caves, Wadas, tombs (Samadhi, Chhatri, etc.), step-wells, mosques, bridges, and river Ghats. This filter will prove useful to many people, not just tourists. For example, NGOs that restore step wells and water resources can check out only what they need.

If I were to describe my app in some other way, I would call it a ‘treasure map’! What’s more, this treasure map fits in your pocket. Our heritage is like a treasure and providing easy access to it can bring new life into the dying and forgotten wonders.

(The author is an archaeologist and a research fellow at Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, Mumbai. Views personal.)