Number Fourteen Singapore Flyer

1 May 2013

In December (yes, I'm a bit behind in my write-ups), Kaye and I made our

first visit to India. I was invited to an event connected with the Alan

Turing Centenary Year organized by the Computer Society of India. This

particular event was a faculty-development program at the PES Institute

of Technology in Bangalore. (During the event it was announced that

PESIT has been granted university status.) Kaye and I stayed on campus,

in a a university guest house connected with the hotel management

program at PESIT. The organizers arranged for a car and driver for some

site-seeing, and a young assistant professor acted as our guide.

(Thanks, Dheeraj!)

We were met at the airport by Dheeraj and our driver. The trip back to

town takes a while, as the airport is a fair distance away, and the main

route is disrupted by construction of an expressway to the airport. The

expressway will be elevated, at least along some of its route, making it

less likely you'll have to contend with cattle strolling across or

motorbikes coming at you the wrong way on the shoulder. At first, I was

a bit panicked by the traffic and the seeming chaos around us. But then

I decided (a) our driver has presumably been on the roads for a while,

and is still alive, and (b) the dents on the car were indicative of

low-speed interactions. So I just decided to let go of my anxiety.

Eventually I started to make sense of the flow patterns and realize that

lane markings and such were more indicative of "trends" than any

absolute limits. I was even starting to understand when vehicles would

sound their horns. (My former PhD student, Sun, who hails from

Bangalore, figures it would more efficient if the the horn button on

motor scooters turned the horn off.)

Most interesting building on the way in from the airport: "National

Bureau of Agriculturally Important Insects"

One of the advantages of being in Bangalore is availability of South

Indian cuisine. Most Indian restaurants around Portland feature North

Indian dishes. Rice, sorghum and millet seem to be the main grains. My

first meal in India was an onion dosa. A dosa is a crepe-like wrapper,

cooked from a batter of ground rice and lentils. We also tried idli,

which is also made from rice and lentils, but steamed as a small cake.

Many of our meals were vegetarian, though frequently with dairy and egg.

We visited two Hindu temples in the vicinity of the restaurant. I was

intensely aware of my limited knowledge of Hindu deities and their

iconography, which helps in making sense of the temples. For example, if

you are at a temple dedicated to Shiva, then you are likely to also see

a statue of his daughter Saraswati (with four hands, two playing the

veena) and a peacock, which is her "vahana" or vehicle. I still don't

have it all sorted out, but most deities and demons can be connected to

the Trimurti: Brahma (creator), Vishnu (sustainer), Shiva (destroyer).

Brahma is usually easy to pick out, since he is almost always

represented with four faces, looking towards the four points of the

compass. Shiva is usually represented by a non-figurative lingam -- a

short cylinder usually atop a shallow basin called a yoni. Vishnu is the

tricky one. He has multiple avatars (incarnations), with different

depictions. The most prominent avatars are Lord Rama and Lord Krishna,

both who are represented with blue skin.

Ganesha is Kaye's favorite Hindu god, and is easy to identify because he

has an elephant's head on a man's body with four arms. The explanation

we were given for the elephant head was that Shiva cut it off because

Ganesha came between him and Parvati, his wife. When Parvati insisted he

restore life to Ganesha, Shiva couldn't find the head (because he had

flung it far away) and so used an elephant head instead. We stopped by a

temple with a big Ganesha -- basically 2-3 times wider than most

representations -- but it was closed and we could only peek in. We were

able to visit the adjacent Bull Temple, which has a large boulder carved

as Nandi, the bull who attends Shiva. The gopura (entrance tower) to the

Bull Temple was different from most we saw, as the statues on it were

not painted (or perhaps painted plain white).

After checking in at the guest house and resting a bit, we headed

outside of town a bit to the Vishwa Shanti Ashram. The most stunning

part was a huge statue of Vishnu, showing him simultaneously as all his

avatars, thus with multiple heads and multiple arms. I counted 15 heads,

which confuses me a bit, as most lists for Vishnu have 10 or 11 avatars.

The enclosing building has all 800 verses of the Bhagavad Gita carved in

stone tablets. Also at the ashram were statues of eight manifestations

of Lakshmi, consort of Vishnu and goddess of wealth and prosperity.

Our final site for the day was the huge ISKCON temple complex back in

town. ISKCON is International Society for Krishna Consciousness, more

informally known as the Hare Krishna movement. There are multiple

shrines on site. The main shrine was of Radha-Krishna. Radha (an

incarnation of Lakshmi) was a friend and advisor of Vishnu's incarnation

as Krishna. As we left, we were given a small serving of food in a

disposable bowl made of pressed palm leaves. I saw these bowls several

other places -- it seems like a fairly environmentally friendly way to

provide disposable items. The leaves are used intact; there isn't a

pulping or treatment process as with paper. From what I can figure out,

leaves are wetted, then pressed into a mold, followed by drying in the

sun. So no large energy input either. (Although the banana-leaf squares

that are placed on the table to serve curry on involve even less

processing.)

There was a new campus building going up at PESIT, and we could see the

construction from our window. The concrete blocks used in the

construction were made with a casting machine on site. (One reason is

that large trucks aren't allowed into Bangalore during the day.) We were

taken by the amount of hand work going on. For example, a load of sand

arrived, and it was shoveled out of the truck my two men. Many of the

laborers were women. They wore saris, and each had a large donut-shaped

ring on her head on which she balanced a large wok-like bowl for moving

sand and rocks. At one point they were moving concrete blocks, and just

used the ring and not the bowl.

One evening, we ventured down to Mahatma Ghandi Road and Brigade Road to

the State Arts & Craft Emporium. Lots of carvings, in rosewood and

sandalwood. One of the particular styles is animals with a tracery

surface, with a miniature of the animal in the hollow inside. One of the

gifts we received at the conference was a pair of elephants in this

style, and we bought a peacock as well. There were also a lot of

textiles, and Kaye bought a couple of lovely cashmere shawls.

Bangalore has a new elevated rail system. It is mostly still under

construction, but there is service among a few stops, so we went for a

ride. The trains and some of the station equipment were quite similar to

what is used in Singapore. We were able to see quite a few Christmas

lights on buildings during the ride. Almost all of them were strung

vertically. Since it is an elevated system, it needs to be routed above

major streets to have enough room. As a consequence, the parts that are

still under construction disrupt traffic on those thoroughfares.

Later in the week we spent a day visiting Mysore and sites near it. On

the way down from Bangalore, we got off the main road into an

agricultural area. The main crops seemed to be coconuts, sugar and rice,

most of which were transported by oxcarts that shared the main road with

cars and trucks. The rice was sometimes threshed by laying it out on the

road and letting the passing vehicles do the work. We also saw brick

kilns in the area -- they seemed to built out of the bricks they fire,

and are dismantled over the course of several months as the bricks our used.

Our destination in the country was the Keshava temple at Somanathapura,

east of Mysore. The temple was built in 1268, when the Hoysala Kingdom

ruled much of southern India. This was one of my favorite sites on the

trip. The main structure was at once highly geometric and highly ornate.

It consists of three connecting shrines, carved from soapstone, each

with a cross-section of a 16-point star. The impression from a distance

is a cake of maybe 15 layers; on closer approach, you see that pretty

much the whole outer surface is covered with figures. We hired a guide

who was able to point out religious figures, animals and mythological

scenes for us, plus illustrations from the Kama Sutra. Both inside of

the main building and in the gate you enter by featured large columns

that had been lathed. How do you turn a 10-foot tall, multi-ton piece of

soapstone? Apparently you mount it vertically on a pivot and use an

elephant to give it a spin. Some of the columns had just been lathed,

but others had additionally been given deep vertical notches and grooves

after. Wonderful stuff. The temple isn't actively used, as nearly all

the images of gods had been defaced (more precisely, de-nosed) by later

invaders.

Before going into the city of Mysore itself, we ventured up to a temple

in the Chamundi Hills for the goddess Durga. It marks where she killed

the buffalo-headed demon Mahishasura. The gopura (gate tower) is seven

stories high, with more intricate and symmetric carving than others we

saw. On the way back to the car, we got a good overlook of the city, and

saw sari's that had been given as offerings being auctioned.

Our next stop was the Mysore Palace. There have been palaces of the

Wodeyar dynasty at this location since the early 1600s. The current one

is the fourth. The third burnt down in 1897 (during the wedding

celebration of a royal princess). The current structure was finished in

1912. It was designed by a British architect, Henry Irwin, and combines

European and Indian styles. The exterior, while ornate, is mostly gray

granite. The interior, on the other hand, has color and paintings

everywhere. Some favorite parts:

- The wedding gallery: a multi-story octagonal atrium with peacock

motifs both in the floor tiles and the stained-glass ceiling.

- A huge gallery along one side of the palace, than steps down and opens

out to the gardens. This area could be set up with seating to view

parades and spectacles on the grounds.

- A royal howdah (carriage that goes on the back of an elephant) that

had battery-operated red and green lights that could be used to signal

stops and starts to the procession behind.

Mysore is a center for silk production in India, and we stopped off at

the government silk factory. The factory was originally supported by the

Wodeyar family, who imported 32 looms from Switzerland (some of which

are apparently still in use). The original production was mainly for the

royal family and military, but now the main product is saris. There was

also a breeding program that produced silkworms that were hybrids of

Mysore worms (brought from China in the 1780s) and ones from Europe. It

was late in the day, and there wasn't active weaving going on, but we

did get to do a little shopping. A lot of the fabric produced there has

a high sheen, and the saris have designs woven in with gold thread

(called zari).

On the way back to Bangalore that evening, we stopped at Sri

Ranganathaswamy Temple, in Srirangapatna, parts of which are 1200 years

old. It was started during the Ganga Dynasty, which lasted in ancient

Karnataka from around 350-1000 AD. It features a statue of Ranganatha

(another manifestation of Vishnu), and depicts him recumbent, resting

his head on the coils of the serpent god Adishesha. It is one of five

Ranganantha temples on the banks of the Cauvery river, and is on a

pilgrammage route.

Our other main excursion was to the east, towards the area around Kolar

Gold Fields (which is the actual name of a town, often called KGF for

short). One of the lab instructors from PESIT was from the area, and

came along with us that day.

The first stop was Kotilingeshwara temple, near KGF. It is dominated by

an enormous lingam over 100 feet tall. Around it, spread over several

acres, are more that 100,000 smaller lingams that people have donated. I

noticed some families and organizations have sponsored entire rows of

them. There was construction underway on another courtyard to

accommodate yet more lingams. Some of the lingams have 5 posts rather

than one. I was told they represent Shiva, his family (Pavarti,

Subramanya, Ganesha), plus the bull Nandi. As we were leaving, we

spotted another temple not far away, with a large cobra statue towering

over it. We stopped in briefly and spoke (via Dheeraj) with the priests

there, who indicated they had recently built the large snake statue to

attract attention of visitors to the Lingam temple. If I understood

correctly, the temple wasn't for the snake per se -- the snake was a

protector of the deity worshipped there. At the base, we could see it

emerges from an anthill. In this part of India, it is believed snakes

live in anthills (some do nest in termite mounds), and milk and egg

offerings are placed near anthills for them. In the country side, we saw

a number of road-side anthills with ribbons around them, and even a

couple with a shelter erected over them.

We next got to see the Bethamangala Water Works, that were built in 1906

to supply water for mining activities (and still function). The

building, settling tanks, valves, piping and holding tanks all appear to

be original. The only obviously new part was electric pumps. At the same

site was a biomass gassification plant. One intended feedstock was

coconut husks. These are discarded in large heaps where coconut-juice

vendors set up, and have to be collected and carted away. Doing a little

research later, it turns out the plant was a demonstration project meant

to power the water works. However, after the plant was completed, the

demand for power was reduced because the main water reservoir was dry

for several years, and there wasn't infrastructure to put the power on

the grid. So apparently it wasn't operated beyond a few tests. It was

put out to bid last October. There is a park around the water works that

houses a government guest house, which used to be the clubhouse for a

local sailing club when the British were there.

Karnataka is a major source of building stone (mainly granite and

limestone, I think). Stone was so easily available around KGF that

columns of it are used as fenceposts for fields, and people build fences

around their gardens with slabs of it.

Our last visits for the day were to a pair of temples in and near

Mugbagal. The first was in the town itself, dedicated to Hanuman. It had

a pond at the base of a large rock outcropping, with steps threading up

through the rocks to a shrine at the top. We were joined at the temple

by a truckload of pilgrims, who we had previously encountered at the

Lingam temple. When they arrived, some of them had a race up the steps

to be first to the shrine. Several of them wanted to have their picture

taken with Kaye, who I guess seemed fairly exotic to them. The other

temple was for Ganesha, and located not far away in Kurudumale. It is

over 500 years hold, built by the Vijayanagara kings. It features a

12-ft call Ganesha idol carved out of a single stone. It was after dark

when we reached it, and I think it was near closing time, but the priest

there was quite kind to us. He took Kaye's camera into the sanctuary to

get a closer picture of Ganesha, and gave me garland of flowers. On

finding out we were from Singapore, he asked if we had any coins from

there. Unfortunately not, as Kaye had cleaned out her purse before the

trip, and I had taken all the coins out of my pockets so I wouldn't

forget them at the metal detector. After we returned, we mailed a

collection of coins to the temple -- we hope they made it there and got

added to his collection.

On our last day in Bangalore, we had some time before we needed to head

out to the airport, and decided to visit some museums in town. The

Industry and Technical Museum had just opened an exhibit on the

mathematician Ramanujan, in honor of the 125th anniversary of his birth.

Ramanujan was of the Brahmin cast, and had a remarkable intuition for

equations in number theory, in particular, continued fractions. How he

derived them is unclear -- some combination of intuition and knowledge

of existing results. He wasn't into proofs, per se, though almost all of

his results have since been formally established. His brilliance was

recognized by G. H. Hardy at Cambridge, who persuaded him, ultimately,

to come to England. While he spent 5 years at Cambridge, he was

distressed at having to change his hair style, his clothing and his

diet. As his health declined, he returned to India, and died in 1919, at

the age of 32.

Besides the special exhibit, the museum had a lot of mechanical models

of linkages, gear trains, engines and so forth to watch, plus some more

recent displays sponsored by the biotech and electronic industries. The

Government Museum next door is mainly an archeological collection, with

excavated pottery from around southern India and a sizable collection of

ancient sculptures, almost all of deities. There was also a gallery of

miniature paintings, cases of coins, and a few musical instruments. On

the far side of the Government Museum is the Venkatappa Art Gallery. The

gallery has a limited permanent collection on display, and the current

exhibitions of modern art didn't excite much. The most interesting part

to me were architectural studies for interior treatments at the Mysore

Palace, and examples of some of the bas relief moldings used there.

On the way out of town we stopped briefly at the Bangalore Palace,

started in 1862 by the principle of Central High School in Bangalore,

but acquired and finished by the Maharaja of Mysore and his descendants.

If you didn't know you were in India, would would imagine you were

viewing a Tudor castle from England. From there we headed up into the

Nanti Hills, hoping to reach a particular summit before sunset, but not

quite succeeding. Some wonderful vistas, nonetheless. Lots of grapes

being grown around the base of the hills.

Extra bit:

The numbering system in India, while decimal, groups digits differently.

Things are the same up to thousands, but then names for large quantities

go up by factors of one hundred. So 100 thousand is a lakh, and 100 lakh

is a crore. The placement of commas follows these units. So what I would

write as 35,500,000 is written 3,55,00,000 there.