Right choice matters

Pic by www.lifescriptdoctor.com

On a hot and sticky day, go out, may be drive up to Colpetty. Stare up at a cloud.You will see the sun peeping through the buildings. In bright orange. Sometimes red. Don’t stare for too long. You don’t want to go blind. It’s too bright that you won’t see anything clear. Eyes will close, naturally. Buildings are growing taller and taller. Wonder how tall future cities might get. But you will see short ones too.Not every building is tall. There is a reason behind having some buildings tall and some short. Where there is threat for earthquakes, buildings are short because tall buildings tend to shake longer than short ones. Tall buildings are more open to damage. Some are tall and fat because they carry so many offices. Or they could be super expensive shopping stalls. If cities are overcrowded, buildings will naturally be tall to occupy more in a little space. Factory buildings are made short purposely. Probably to avoid a lot of damage if there is a fire, or some other natural disaster. 

There is a purpose for everything built or made .You will realize it.Even maps do.

Maps are pictures of earth used for references. The information that a map carries will differ from each other. Its uses will differ from cartographers to researchers, students and a person walking on a street. Maps are designed with roles. They fulfill certain purposes.

Road maps are very common. Often used for navigation when you are exploring a new city. They will include major and minor highways. Major highways are usually shown in wide red lines. Smaller ones are less prominent with lighter colors. Airports, parks, monuments and other attractions will be depicted too. Physical maps will show you feature of a particular area, such as lakes, rivers and seas. Land features are colored depending on their elevations. In general, low lying terrain such as plains and coastal areas are green. Higher mountains range from orange to brown, depending on how high they are.

There are political maps too. It tells the reader where political boundaries are in a country. For instance, provinces and district demarcations are illustrated. They will carry names and locations of major cities and capitals. If you want to know about climatic features, you got to consult climate maps. They will teach you the average number of cloudy days, temperature ranges, average rainfall or the snowfall. These are the maps commonly used in weather reports on the evening news. Geography students will often refer resource maps which will show economic activities and natural resources of certain city or country. They will have illustrations on major industries, plantations, paddy cultivation and even farming statistics. You can learn about areas where minerals are dense, where gems are mostly found or some other crop that is largely grown.

If you take a look at an atlas book, road maps, political maps and resource maps will come first. Turn to the last few pages. You will come across something different. Those are thematic maps. The word ‘thematic’ may not be there. But they will carry information on population, birth rate, death rate, membership to political organizations and sometimes the literacy rate and language distribution. 

We look at maps everyday. There are maps at stations indicating train routes. If you look inside a jetty carefully, you will notice maps illustrating ferry routes and halts, and same with air routes. Maps are important for pilots and control towers to avoid accidents.

If you are traveling in a train, a road map will not help you to discover your destination. A road map will only indicate streets and highways. Having the wrong map can lead you somewhere else. And this is why you find different kinds of maps. Because each of them serves a different purpose.

Think for a second. You will not go to a funeral wearing a party dress. You will not attend a party wearing something that looks like pyjamas. If you want to become a doctor you cannot be setting your goals of somebody who wants to become an engineer. What an engineer should do is different from a doctor. Knowing the purpose and learning the right way to achieve the purpose is important therefore. Take simple things. When you shop for a skirt, you won’t go for anything that’s double your size or anything that is less or too tight. That’s why there are fit-on rooms, for you to go for the correct choice. Maps too need a fit-on. If you don’t choose the right map that suits your purpose or object, you’ll be lost somewhere.

(Featured in 'The Nation' newspaper on the 30th November 2014)