the Software Industry and its malaise

First Quarter results of the companies are coming out. While TCS reported the strongest result of all the biggies of India, others did not fare too badly. Infy's and Wipro's results may be a bit disappointing for their shareholders, but it is still not something to be alarmed about.  Irrespective of the results, all have expressed high confidence in the long term growth of the sector and the prospect for their organization, although hardly there were any mention about their future growth engines. If there is anything, there is a mention of cost rationalization in Wipro executive's statement: "We have improved our people pyramid cost. Our margins have expanded by 60 basis points because of the higher proportion of freshers." With consistent downward pressure on outsourcing pricing, it is only rational that cost of service must be brought down to maintain profitability margin. And Wipro is not alone there. Almost all Indian medium and large software companies have adopted this method of cost reduction i.e. by increasing the share of freshers and junior practitioners in its employee-base. The trend is not limited to service-based profit centres like Wipro, Infy, the trend is equally strong with Indian cost centres of large software MNCs. A casual scan on all job portals will tell you that demand, wherever there is, is almost always in 0-8 years experience bracket.
So what happens to not-so-junior practitioners? That's a question, both media and company executives would like you to not ask, which gives a perfect alibi to talk about in this blog.

Big Fame of software Industry and its blindside

Software Industry got its fame particularly on couple of accounts:

1. Spectacular company growth and
2. Spectacular increase in salary during boom time.

First one brought a lot of eager shareholders and fans and second one brought many people fresh out of college opting to join the IT industry. In US, there was another very strong incentive, possibility of a startup company making big and its employees retiring rich on its shares at young age.  Retire by 40 was the catchline, not too long ago. In India, since successful startups hardly come by, one incentive that worked for it was 'assignment abroad'. However none, if you look closely, actually are about structural strength of the industry. If one compares the industry with other engineering industries [with an obvious exception to Financial Engineering Industry], there is a stark difference. In those companies a typical growth incentive was to participate and contribute to large and complex engineering projects and thereby make one's mark in the Industry. Credibility and market value of a firm in those Industries were expected to grow only when the firm brings out better products, executes engineering-wise ambitious projects. That was good incentive to retain experiences and knowledgeable people. In Software Industry, it is generally accepted that technology changes lot faster. So organizations need people nimble and adaptable enough, who can learn fast and deliver faster. It is also commonly accepted that younger people are more adaptable and faster than older colleagues. Naturally software firms tend to bias towards younger lot. Most of the companies prefer average age to be closer or below 30.That needless to mention, helps the company in keeping the cost down. The tagline is bring more people at the bottom of the pyramid and flatten/trim the middle layers of the pyramid as much as possible. Net effect, as engineers become senior they become more vulnerable to be replaced by younger ones. If you are thinking this is only true for Indian software Industry, think again!
A recent article in Bloomberg talks about how software professional in US are vulnerable to lose job as they approach 40. The article argues that unlike legal, medical or educational profession, software engineers tend to be less desirable as they age.  The article observes,"even if the 45-year-old programmer making $120,000 has the right skills,“companies would rather hire the younger workers.”  To add to their woes, the article reports, there are young engineers from India with H1-B visa who are cheaper and easily available to American companies. The author clearly is unaware that same treatment is meted to experienced professionals in India.
'So what?', you may ask, 'if the industry prefers younger population, as long as the Industry grows? It is not that all the people above 40 are getting laid off!'
Absolutely! But is the Industry really growing? If the industry really could grow as it used to be there won't be any need to remove people. And secondly what happens when one trades experience with cost?
Let's look at each question carefully.
If we look at the results from Indian software vendors, it is fairly evident that they are struggling to maintain even low double-digit growth rate [previously average rate of growth used to be 35%] and if we follow closely executives' discourse, it is clear that they are focussing more on pushing the bottomline in order to improve profitability. Above 95% utilization of existing resources and reducing average cost/resources figure prominently in strategy-speak. Even a college kid understands that only when the topline projection flattens, people get forced to find ways to push the bottom-line further. If this is true for Indian Software vendors, let's look at IBM. One blogger observes that IBM's strategy to improve EPS [Earning/share] in next 3-4 years hinges upon reducing cost of their work-force. One may argue that it is in tune with global macro-economic scenario; if the global economy is in tatters, software industry cannot escape from that. While that statement is generally believed to be true, one cannot miss that Apple also became enormous during this time. It is those software firms that primarily look at cost arbritage for software development as the primary determinant, are particularly finding growth as challenge and that covers majority of the known software houses.
Coming to the next question, let's look at the effect of reducing senior people from rosters. Long-time customers [e.g. Walt Disney] are walking away from companies like IBM because they do not find the quality and timeliness as they used to get from IBM earlier. Many attribute that to large segment of young relatively inexperienced work-force who fill the botttom rank of IBM's cost pyramid. You can bet that other software vendors face similar challenges. Customers often complain about skill and experience inadequacies in the vendors' resources and relatively  poor (technically speaking) fixes or long fixing time for a customer issue. There is overwhelming belief in many of the software companies that Quality processes adequately take care of loss of experience. Those who have seen it from close quarter, know well that it is cultivated myth. Fact is impact of loss of experience never seriously mattered to those who matter in these firms. It is not much of surprise that Sofware engineering fares lot worse compared to other engineering stream when it comes to long-term quality [durability, scalability, maintenability] or execution success rate. Standish Chaos 2009 report showed only 32% success rate for software projects. Dr. Dobbs journal who question methodology of Standish Chaos report, report for 2010 from their own survey

Ad-hoc projects: 49% are successful, 37% are challenged, and 14% are failures.

Iterative projects: 61% are successful, 28% are challenged, and 11% are failures.

Agile projects: 60% are successful, 28% are challenged, and 12% are failures.

Traditional projects: 47% are successful, 36% are challenged, and 17% are failures.

Irrespective of which side you are, it is not a pretty picture, even though you may question about sampling universe. Any other engineering stream report lot better statistics.

So what is it really?

One can blame on many things for that bad score, like poor requirement definition or poor change tracking or poor project execution, but chances of getting it right is low. Fact is software Industry is not going to be like any other Industry. Most of the software projects, successful or not, very rarely finish the way they were envisaged in the beginning. Understanding what is to be developed, many times build up gradually. Because of this reason, the cost of repairing an error is less of a consideration in determining 'success' of a project, which for any other engineering trade, constitutes one of the primary metrics. That translates to real lack of motivation for creating objective measure of cost of losing experience and skill depth but there are both carrots and sticks to reduce the project expenses. Company managers take this advantage by stressing (quite mechanically at times) on following process at the cost of prople but that hardly solves the issue, as the scorecard shows. Quoting Steve Jobs [source], "Companies get confused, when they start getting bigger they want to replicate their initial success and a lot of them think well somehow there is some magic in the process of how that success was created so they start to try to institutionalize process across the company. And before very long people get very confused that the process is the content.” The managers forget that process is not the end goal but the product is and it is peeople who develop the product and more experienced a person is better is his output quality. Following process can be easily monitored but hardly that guarantees great product. In other words, one can keep expanding the base of pyramid but that will never give a company run-away success or high double digit growth. Having the right vision for the product/solution for the customers, getting the right people who know how to develop product and retaining them are critical for that. That needs inspriring leadership, creative passion for the products/vision, skill depth and experience which the organizations trade for lower expense today. As long as the executives are measured against the numbers but not the creative forces that they unleashed in the organization, it is very unlikely that the present scenario of the Industry will change. 

Finally India figures in 4G map

Yesterday, Airtel launched 4G service in Calcutta, first time in India. When I wrote my post, "will India leapfrog to 4G?" few months back, little did I imagine that it will be so soon, although it definitely gives a sense of pleasure to see it coming in real. Airtel picked the TDD-LTE as the technology and ZTE, China as its technology partner. With Airtel already adopting it, we can expect Reliance to follow the suit some time this year. That would make LTE-TDD the technology of choice for 4G in entire south Asia with China taking the lead. It also looks like that China's dominance in 4G technology space will be complete. Why Airtel chose ZTE:

• ZTE says it is a leader in developing LTE technologies and has applied for 381 essential patents (EPs) for LTE standards, which account for approximately seven percent of the total number of EP applications globally.
• ZTE has won 30 contracts for LTE commercial application and has deployed test networks in cooperation with more than 100 operators across the globe.
• To date, ZTE has signed three contracts related to deploying and upgrading 3.5GHz TDD-LTE networks in Asia-Pacific and Africa.
• ZTE is a major global vendor driving the use of 3.5GHz and 3.6GHz bands. The use of these bands has now been approved as an industry standard by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project.
• ZTE also has helped operators like Japan's Softbank, Sweden's Hi3G and China Mobile successfully deploy TD-LTE networks.
• and ZTE is dedicated to becoming the world's No. 1 TDD-LTE brand. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ZTE filed for the most PCT patents of any company worldwide in 2011 with 2,826 filings.

Sounds great! Since the number of 4G handsets available in India is quite low at the moment, Airtel is launching dongles (made by ZTE) with the SIM cards built in. The tariff also looks quite reasonable compared to existing ADSL+ or 3G broadband rate. Presently they have three plans:

plan name	rentals (per month-INR)	free quota (GB)	speed post FUP (kbps)
breakfree	999	6	128
breakfree max	1399	9	128
breakfree ultra	1999	18	128

Airtel says they would be starting pan-indian broadband service soon. Although theoretical limit for 4G service is 100 Mbps [download] and 40 Mbps [upload], one cannot reasonably expect that speed with Airtel at present; 128kbps for that matter is a good starting point.

What made Airtel launch the service so early? It appears that world, primarily led by Chinese technology developers, are moving for fast 4G adoption. This Financial report article said that China telecom has decided to accelerate its 4G deployment. Deployment also became more cost-effective with average cost coming down to $10K for converting a 3G Base Station to 4G Base station. China telecom has invested most of all the telecom operators on 4G trial so far. They have good reason to accelerate the 4G deployment. But it appears that many countries will be in 4G map before this year ends. Srilanka already is, for example. While European and US operators may be slow with 4G deployment GSA expects that south asia will drive the 4G deployment this year. As per their latest reports there are 300 operators invested in 4G and 347 LTE User devices launched by 63 vendors.

While Network side deployment is going on full-swing, one area that concerns the market is there are not many 4G handsets available. Handset technology is little more tricky since it involves voice, video telephony and roaming over 4G and probably 3G and standardization effort continues to be an ongoing process. However all existing handset leaders are gearing up to launch 4G-enabled smartphone sometime this year looking at both China and India as the major market segment. In fact there is already news  that Apple's iPhone 5 as well as new iPad will support LTE-TDD.

Overall, it looks like, 2012 will be a very exciting year for high-speed mobile telephony and Indian consumers are not going to be left behind.

In case anyone is interested, 4G World Asia is scheduled on 21st May in Singapore

Hampi (15th century Vijayanagara) in winter

 "Sir, Hotel?" I saw a young man in jeans walking towards me.

"My name is Shiva. You want to go to Hampi, don't you, Sir? I can provide you Auto, Car at a very reasonable rate."
It was early morning and I was standing on the railway platform of Hospet. We reached only couple of minutes back and I was trying to understand how much the place changed in last 13 years, since I visited last time.  "How much would Auto cost me?", I asked. He said two hundred and we finally settled for Rs. 180 for a drop to Karnataka Tourism Hotel at Kamalapur, Hampi. Hampi, perhaps, is the most popular and most highlighted historical tourism place in Karnataka. But beside the historical ruins, one aspect that is rarely spoken about it is that it is also a famous pilgrimage spot for Hindus and also figures prominently in the must-visit list of spiritual seekers, particularly those travelling from Europe.

Vittala Temple, broken portion is visible

Closer look at the musical pillars (undecorated ones)
 in Vittala Temple

Terracotta on the Gopuram: Vittala temple

 Historically Hampi is the erstwhile capital of  14th-16th century Vijayanagara empire and is situated at the south bank of Tungabhadra. Archiologists tell us that Hampi existed as densely populated place for many centuries before  Harihara Raya I and Bukka Raya I founded Vijayanagar empire and adopted Hampi as its capital. Chronologically Vijayanagar empire comes after Hoysala dynasty who ruled almost entire Karnataka from 11th till the early 14th century. 
Multiple dynasties were associated Vijayanagara empire. Sangama dynasty that founded the empire ruled till late 15th century, Saluve dynasty started by Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya ruled for next twenty years till Tuluva dynasty came strong with Tuluva Narasa Nayaka. Tuluva dyansty ruled for next 80 years and Vijayanagara empire prospered most under Krishnadevaraya. It is said that Vijayanagara emire reached its peak during this time. Many of the glorious monuments in present Hampi ruins including the most spectacular Vittala temple were built during the rule of Krishnadevaraya. After Krishnadevaraya, it took just another thirty years before the empire crashed to its ruins. The sudden capture and killing of Aliya Rama Raya in 1565 at the Battle of Talikota, against an alliance of the Deccan sultanates, after a seemingly easy victory for the Vijayanagara armies, created havoc and confusion in the Vijayanagara ranks, which were then completely routed. The Sultanates' army later plundered Hampi and reduced it to the ruinous state in which it remains at present; it was never re-occupied [source]
The famous Ruins

Stone Chariot in front of Vittala Temple

 The first spot that people head towards is the famous Vittala Temple, built in dravidian vimana style where alongwith coarse-grains granite, bricks and terracota are also used. Different granite materials were used to build the musical pillars each of which used to resonate to different note of musical octave when the hall was commissioned. Many of them are broken [the main sanctum is already in dilapidated condition] since I came here last time and surviving pillars, quite justifiably, are not allowed to be touched by the visitors. Terracotta are used to create smooth-surfaced figurines and ornamental design on the top of the Gopurams, lot of which are already broken. The stone pillars in the temple are carved separately and fixed in place later. Each of them is richly engraved following both the Chola and Hoysala tradition. The iconic stone chariot in front of the main temple, if one carefully observes, did not have the elephants originally. Perhaps after the original horses and staircase got broken, very likely during army invasion, elephants were brought from somewhere and placed there. It still looks regal in front of the Vittala temple.This chariot is adopted as the symbol of Karnataka Tourism.

Lotus Mahal

Krishna Temple near King's Court

 While the stone chariot, Musical pillars and gorgeous stone engraving of Vittala temple are much-spoken-about [Govt of Karnataka even has a special arrangement where the special night lighting is turned on for eclectic audience and one must admit that the temple and entire area look almost surreal under the night light. The lights are turned on during Govt-sponsored Hampi Utsav or when the Karnataka Golden Chariot train reaches Hampi], Krishna Temple and Lotus Mahal also demand your attention for their exquisiteness of craftsmanship, ingenious mix of various architecture styles and smart engineering. All these monuments were painted beautifully with natural colours, some of them are still visible on the stone chariot or at the ceiling of the temples and Lotus Mahal.
Virupaksha temple in the Hampi Bazar is not far from the ruins but is not considered part of the ruins for the deity [Lord Shiva] is still worshipped today and is a prime spot on the pilgrimage route for the Hindu devotees. In fact this temple dates back to mid-7th century AD, many centuries before Vijayanagara empire came into being and is believed to  be functioning uninterruptedly ever since its inception.That makes this one of the oldest functioning temples in India. It is this temple and few others that have given the spiritual credence to Hampi.
But more than the ruins there is certain magic about Hampi even today that makes you feel relaxed and joyful as soon as you reach Hampi, be it Kamalapur where Karnataka Tourism Hotel is located or the long empty stretches of winding roads that lap you around like you are the last living being on earth or the huge uneven expanse strewn with rocks and boulders that almost give you a feeling of living in a prehistoric age or the river Tungabhadra flowing serenely through these open and wide rocky terrain, unmindful and unperturbed of all the human activities surrounding it.  Almost all areas have certain local legend related to some act in the Ramayana giving the extra edge of sacredness to this place. All these slowly build up a feeling that you are and you have been, even before you existed, part of this whole space that is undivided from the infinite since the creation of the magical Universe.

Tungabhadra and Anjandri Hill

While geologically this area is said to have existed long before thee great Himalaya came into being, it is the local stories, connecting mythological characters and Gods in Ramayana and Purana, that have lent solidity to the overwhelming sense of eternity attached to this place.

pilgrim climbing the anjandri hill

I was climbing the stairs of Anjanadri hill, while my mind was weaving those thoughts. Beside the hoardes of monkeys jumping all around, we had a group of pilgrims cheering all of us in Bhojpuri Hindi. Their continuous chant of Hanuman chalisa, it appeared, also caught the imagination of the fellow young Russian travellers.  "Jai Baj-rang-wa-li", one of them greeted us in broken accent. Some of the girls even wore red bindi on their forehead. Religiosity, as it appears, is an innate human nature.

Pampa Sarovar

Northern bank of Tungabhadra
 Anegundi, at the northern bank of river Tungabhadra, is at a distance of 5 km from the historical site of Hampi. It is locally believed to be the ancient monkey kingdom of KISHKINDHA described in  Ramayana. Anjanadri hill, the birth place of Lord Hanuman, and the mountain Rishimuka are the other places near Anegundi associated with Ramayana. It takes around 500 steps to reach the temple of Anjana devi, the mother of Lord Hanuman, at the top of Anjaneya Parvat, which is probably the highest hillock in the vicinity. Hordes of devotees from UP and Bihar throng this temple everyday for whom there is no bigger truth than the faith that their beloved immortal God Lord Hanuman was born on this hill. Ruins of Hampi are insignificant artefacts of history for most of them which can be corroborated by the fact that most of them hardly visit the ruins of Hampi. Not surprisingly the priests in this temple are from North India and entire sermon is made in Hindi instead of Kannada. Warm welcome from the priests and unrestricted access to the temple complex is another aspect that nobody fails to notice.

Devotees getting down at Pampa Sarovar

Pampa Sarovara and Laxmi Temple at the bank of it are another hotspot for Hindu devotees. Local mythology tells you that Pampa Sarovara is the place where Hanuman rested on his way to Himalayas. It is one among the five holy Sarovars installed by Brahma where Shiva and Parvati are worshipped, as per the local legends. The others being Manasarovar (In Tibet), Bindu Sarovar and Narayan Sarovar in Gujarat and Pushkar Sarovar in Rajasthan. Pampa devi is none other than Goddess Parvati, the consort of Lord Shiva, asserts the local version of mythology.
 The story goes like this: Pampa, born here, wanted to marry Lord Shiva, who was deep in meditation on the Hemakuta hill, which is right opposite the Virupaksha temple. She realized that meditation was the only way she could win him, and proceeded to do so, on the banks of a lake, on the other side of the river, where the present Pampa Sarovara is located. Finally, Shiva became aware of her and being satisfied with her devotion he agreed to marry her. The location where they were married is where the Virupaksha temple stands today. Even today, villagers from the surrounding areas prefer to marry within the temple premises, considering it an auspicious beginning to their married life.
It is believed that the name Hampi is local dialect translation [Apabharmsa] from Pampa. If you are mesmerised by this story, there are more waiting for you. There is Chintamani temple complex- cave where Rama met Sugreeva and Hanuman for the first time and the place from where he shot and killed Vali. Locals even identify the place where legendary fight between Sugrib and Bali in Ramayana happened before Bali was assasinated by Ram.
Then there is Sabari cave, where Sabari waited till Ram came to bless her. As per Ramayana, princess Sabari was cursed to a stone by an angry saint. Later the saint told her that only Lord Rama can lift the veil of curse and told her to wait till he comes there and touches her. Sabari got free from the curse only when Rama visited her.

But not all are myth. Anegundi played a major role in Bhakti movement particularly to the school of Madhvacharya during 14th century. Nava Brindavana (Nine Brindavana), situated on a small island on the Tungabhadra still stands as a proof to that statement. Navabrindavanam has the Samadhis (tombs) of nine saints, followers of Madhvacharya, and predecessors of Sri Raghavendra.
Myths, histories and vast, ancient landscape of Hampi fill every moment of your existence so much so that even after three days of stay we felt sad to leave this place.
Reaching and Staying there

ancient Rock-strewn landscape of Hampi

Nearest Ralhead is Hospet. Nearest Bus station also is Hospet. Even for those who like to drive to Hampi, Hospet is the highway junction. Hospet is connected to National road network through NH13. From Hospet, Hampi is around 15 kms and while there are many hotels in Hospet, the place that I would recommend is Karnataka Tourism Hotel in Hampi. Though many things cane be improved, the  hospitality still is hearwarming. I visited this place after almost 10 years and haven't felt any love lost! The large sprawling garden and open restaurant are few of the luxuries that very few can match in the entire area. For the backpackers, particularly Europeans, there are quite a few budget-places in Anegundi where they serve the European breakfast too.
In brief

Sunset at Hampi

It is undeniable that Hampi enjoys more than fair share of attention of tourists coming to Karnataka but it is also true that Hampi is one of the rarest tourist spots in India to have such a mix of historical,  mythological and spiritual heritage to offer to its visitors.
More photos

Chalukya Heritage: Aihole and Pattadakal

Chalukya Geneology: those in green are
known to provide more patronage to
temple building

At around 135 km from Hospet [and 500 km from Bangalore], Badami is a small town in Bagalkot district of North Karnataka but it used to be the capital of the great Chalukya kingdom during the period C. 550-754 A. D. It is told that Aihole [old Aryapura] had the honour of being the capital of Chalukya dynasty before the capital moved to Badami. Pattadakal a small village at around 30 km from Badami and 10 km from Aihole used to be the place for coronation of Chalukyan Kings at that time. But today Aihole, Pattadakal and Badami are known more as the tourist spot, a place that boasts of great architecture heritages of ancient Chalukya empire, the empire that used to cover from the present western karnataka/goa coast to entire Kaveri/Narmada basin under its rule at its peak.
Historians largely credit Pulakesin I [literally means tiger-haired] to establish the Chalukya empire at around 550 AD a little after Gupta empire declined. Although historians differ about the origin of Chalukyas, the Chalukya period is considered to be the golden age of Karnataka history.
The most prominent among the Chalukyan Kings were Pulakeshin I and II and Vikramaditya II. They were attributed to most of the development and expansion that happened under this dynasty. They were also recognized to have hugely contributed to cultural development of the state. Hsüan-tsang who visited Harshavardhana in north also travelled to Badami during the rule of Pulakesin II. The Chalukya patronage not only contributed immensely to the development of Kannada as the language [there are quite a few inscriptions in Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal which are in Saskrit but written in old Kannada script showing the evolution of Kannada as a language] , it also helped maturing dravidian style of architecture. Both Aihole and Pattadakal show some of the glorious development of south Indian temple architectures. History attributes Kirtivarman I and Mangalesha for construction of Badami cave temples [covered in my last post] but it was Pulakesin II who oversaw the development of different temples in Aihole.

Aihole Temple complex

Present ASI heritage site of Aihole is a complex of 22 temples built at different times during Chalukyan period. Typical features unique to Badami Chalukyas architecture include mortarless assembly, an emphasis on length rather than width or height, flat roofs, richly carved ceilings, and, sculpturally, an emphasis on relatively few major figures, which tend to be isolated from each other rather than arranged in crowded groups. The aesthetic sensibility of sculpture from this period also seems to retain a certain classical quality whose impulse does not carry over into later periods of Indian art (Susan Huntington, 1985). Aihole served as the laboratory of rock craftsmanship. They mixed contemporary south-indian and north indian styles to bring up something unique. Usage of curved towers decorated with blind arches came from northern India. Plastered walls with panel inserts are a southern Indian style. Two temples in this complex are worth a little elaboration.

Durga Temple from Front

Lad Khan temple [photo] is one of the first of Chalukyan temples, some believe to be constructed as a sample in 450 A.D, perhaps for Lord Shiva. The mukha mantapa in front of the sanctum has a set of 12 carved pillars.There are also stone grids on the wall carrying floral designs. The windows are filled with lattice style which is a north Indian style.

Durga Temple at Aihole from the backside

Durga temple or fortress temple is the best known of the Aihole temples and is very photogenic. It is apsidal in plan, along the lines of a Buddhist chaitya, a high moulded adisthana and a tower - curvilinear shikhara. A pillared corridor runs around the temple, enveloping the shrine, the mukhamantapa and the sabhamantapa. All through the temple, there are beautiful carvings. The temple appears to be of the late 7th or early 8th century. ASI note suggests that the temple initially was designed for Sun-god and later converted to Durga temple.

Pattadakal

Pattadakal temple complex: seen both the Nagara style and
Vimana style temples

Pattadakal was another place where Chalukya empire patroned evolution of temple architecture. Historians believe that Pattadaakal helped maturing Vimana-style of temple architecture seen in all south india and also was used to build the Kailasnath temple in Ellora. The complex shows various temples built either in North Indian Nagara style [Kashi Vishwanath temple] or mix of north and dravidian style or fully evolved Dravidian Vimana style. Virupaksha temple built by Queen Lokamahadevi (Trilokyamahadevi) in around 745AD to commemorate  victory of Vikramaditya II over the Pallavas of Kanchi resembles the famous Kanchi temple of Pallava empire. The temple is richly decorated with stone engraving depicting stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata all around. The Shivalingam in the temple is still worshipped today. There is another temple identical to it but smaller than the original Virupaksha temple and ASI note says that it was built by the second queen of Vikramaditya II, who incidentally was sister of Queen Lokamahadevi.
More photos are available at Picasa album.

How to go there

Badami is the nearest railway station for Pattadakal. Badami (Station Code:BDM ) itself is on the less busy Solapur-Gadag route. This means, there are not many long distance trains connect Badami directly with other metro cities in the region. Hubli and Hospet are the major junctions nearby. Hubli is connected to Bangalore and has many trains running between Bangalore and Hubli.  This site provides a comprehensive list of alternative routes. But my personal suggestion would be that you club this with Hampi. That way you can stay in Hampi and take a tourist cab [pelnty available] from Hampi/Hospet for a day trip to Badami.  Since Aihole and Pattadakal are nearby, you can cover them in one day.

Reference

http://www.preservearticles.com/2011101715538/short-essay-on-the-chalukyas-of-badami.html
http://ratnagiri.nic.in/Gazetter/GOM/his_chalukyas.html

Ajanta to Mahabalipuram: in search of India's rock-cut architecture

Mahisasurmardini engraving in Cave 1

The security staff warned, "Ma'am, be careful with your purse, monkeys already snatched bags from three ladies today!" That also could be good news since monkeys would be busy in exploring the content of snatched bags and would allow other bags to stay where they are, I thought.
We were standing in front of Badami caves, an extraordinary piece of pre-medieval rock-cut architecture. The four cave ensemble was carved out of sandstone during 6th-7th century AD under the patronage of Chalukya dyansty. The first one is dedicated to Lord Shiva, the second and the third to Lord Vishnu and the topmost one is the only non-Hindu cave dedicated to Lord Mahavira. Richness of the sandstone carving at a gigantic scale in first three caves leaves one in search for words. The only comparison if at all, one can have is with Ellora and Ajanta, although Ajanta caves were cut much earlier. Beside the architectural marvels of these millenium-old man-made cave temples, what intrigued me is how the masonry skill, architectural knowledge and engineering know-how flourished and flowed across distant regions of India where most of the travel used to be long and arduous in the absence of a large-scale tranaport system.
This post is my own journey of appreciation of  some of the greatest heritages of India: the Ajanta and Ellora caves, Mahabalipuram or Mamallapuram and Badami cave.
Geographically Ajanta and Ellora caves are in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Mahabalipuram is in Taminadu and very near to Chennai while Badami is in north Karnataka. One common thread between the four are that all of them are rock-cut architectures; some involve chiselling the full structure from single monolithic rock while other invove cutting the basalt or sandstone rock face to create the space for temple.
Historically Ajanta caves date back from 2nd century BCE till 5th century AD. Badami caves date back to 6th century AD and Mahabalipuram construction are considered to happen during 7th century AD. The Buddhist caves in Ellora are belived to be built during 5th-7th century AD, the Hindu caves were built between 6th and 8th century and the Jain caves were believed to be built between 8th and 9th century AD. It is quite appparent that if one excludes Ajanta, rest of the temple sites are almost contemporary.
Royal Patronage
Building such large structure out of stone requires huge man power and would not have been possible without royal patronage. It is intersting to note that in the long history of Indian Royal empires and kingdoms, there are only few dynasties that were found a mention who patronized stone-based architecture.

Ajanta Caves
It is believed that early Ajanta caves were built under patronage of  Satavahana dynasty [230 BCE - c. 220 CE], the later ones [during 5th century] were built during Vakataka rule. Historians believe most of the later caves were built  from 460 to 480 CE, during the reign of Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka dynasty.


Ellora Caves

Kailas temple at Ellora

Ellora Buddhist caves, Wiki claim to be built under patronage of Satvahana dynasty but the time does not appear to agree. In fact it could as well be that people abandoned Ajanta after fall of Harishena and came to Ellora and built the temples. Patronage of Hindu temples appear less uncertain with early temples understood to be constructed during the Kalachuri period and the most complex and rich ones including the famous Kailas temple to be commissioned by Rashtrakuta empire. Incidentally Kailas temple, the most intricately constructed Shiva temple is carved out of large monolithic rock top-down and was preceded by two similar looking but abandoned temples. It is considered one of its kind in the world for both the richness of the carving and engineering ingenuity. It appears to have taken 100 long years to complete this temple, as per the historians.Maintaining engineering consistency over hundred years when a single error can bring down the entire architecture is by itself a feat that hardly can be found any parallel for, anywhere.
Badami Caves

Entering Badami Caves

History is less uncertain about Badami caves which is recorded to be built by Kirthivarman (567-598 AD) and his brother Mangalesha I (598-610 AD), the sons of Pulakesi I,  the founder of Chalukya dynasty. It is worth noting that Pallavas and Chalukyas fought many wars and later, both got consumed by Rashtrakuta empire.


Mahabalipuram Rock Art

Shore Temple

One rock-cut temple in Mahabalipuram

Mamallapuram rock architectures that include shore temple, Five rathas, Arjun's penance and other isolated stone-works were sponsored by Pallava dynasty who ruled from Kanchipuram. All of them were carved out from monolithic rocks that were locally available. Some of the strcuture sunk under water at later times because of a Tsunami but most of the major artwork are still intact.
Art historian Percy Brown, traces the possible roots of the Pallava Mandapa to the similar rock-cut caves of Ajanta Caves and Ellora Caves. Referring to Narasimhavarman's victory in AD 642 over the Chalukyan king Pulakesin II. Brown says the Pallava king may have brought the sculptors and artisans back to Kanchi and Mamallapuram as 'spoils of war'.
 Connecting them together

Lomas Rishi cave
[http://www.mapability.com/travel/p2i/images/93-034-04.jpg]

Earliest evidence of Indian rock-cut craftmanship that survived the grind of time is barabar cave temple, built during Mauryan period, actually by Ashoka. One look at the Lomas Rishi entrance engraving reminds one of Ajanta Chaityas, only the latter is built in more exquisite and grander style. It is interesting to note that Barabar cave in Bihar was not a Buddhist shrine. "Being a sincere Buddhist the emperor Asoka was tolerant of the other religions in his vast realm . Proof of this are the remarkable caves he had cut on the stark and rocky Barabar Hills for the use of Ajivaka ascetics."[source]. Ajivaka school of Jainism was started by a Buddha-contemporary named Makkhali Gosala.

Front facade of one cave in Ajanta

The structure that entirely carved out of granite was supposed to resemble timbre structure that used to be predominatly used during that time for building temple. Probably this was the first time one Timbre artisan tried his hand on granite and with his overwhelming success, made the rock-engraving hugely popular for following generations. British library text says, " Along with the other cave-temples in the Barabar hills, the Lomas Rishi cave, provided a prototype for the larger Buddhist Chaitya halls that are found in Maharasthra such as Ajanta or Karli and were very influential to the tradition of South Asian rock-cut architecture."
  So, the artistry and skill got improved over generations, from early Ajanta caves to Ajanta caves of 4th century AD. After Ajanta caves were abandoned, the artisans moved to Ellora and Elephanta caves and then to Badami and at a later point to Mahabalipuram. Unfortunately ancient Indians are not known to maintain objective history, but if we had, we could find that there is connection with Aihole, Pattadakal and other rock architectures too.
It, however, appears that irrespective of which dyansty rules or which religion prevails, the craftmanship flowed between different places and rules in ancient period demonstrating respectful tolerance of religions and ethnicities and respect for craftsmen. Respect for multiculturalism was one of the most ancient hallmark of Indian ethos, which probably was lost sometime during mediaval period. That way ancient India was equally modern in perspective as we are today, perhaps a little more?

In search of Bengali root

Years back I had an interesting encouter in a so called jungle resort in Masinagudi (Tamilnadu), where we stayed for a couple of days. We had a young man as our guide. He could speak Tamil fluently which we did not understand and had a limited vocabulary with English which was our only common language of communication. He told us that he was born in Srilanka and was brought up in a local Christian church and though he never went to school, he learnt many things from the learned people who happened to visit the place. When he asked us where we are coming from, one of my young Bengalee friends explained to him that he comes from Calcutta which is the capital of West Bengal, a state in the eastern part of India. To that our guide affirmed him that he knew about Bengal. He also told us with absolute certainty [he had a tone that fathers use when they teach their kids not to question the authority of a father's knowledge] that  all Bengalees are originally Tamil and the Tamils migrated many centuries back to Bengal and became Bengalees. Being outstripped of his originality in such a cavalier manner, our Bengalee friend was naturally enraged. Others cajoled him not to take it too seriously since the guide is telling him what the guide has heard and that the guide was not particularly an expert in the field.
If you thought that it was only the Bengalees who react in that manner, few days back I met a Malayali gentleman who was so taken into believing that Syrian catholic Malayalis are not from India, that he was willing to fund a blood sampling study to establish the truth beyond anyone's doubt.
Fact is our regional or clanish identity is at the very root of our self-identity but however one likes to believe that they are direct descendent of Moses or Lord Rama, ours is a common history of migration.

Early Human Inhabitation to Early Human Civilization in India
It is now established scientifically that human species i.e. Homo Sapiens came to being in African continent and has moved to different areas of the planet from there. Migration is a natural process of the growth and expansion of population. Continental migration of human species particularly Homo sapiens started almost 60,000 years ago [Homo Erectus moved many thousands of years before that] and as established by Mitochondrial DNA research, the migration route covered Indian subcontinent squarely. The research also establishes that migration happened multiple times with natural disaster taking the role of the mighty Devil that periodically wiped out species from many parts of the planet [see National Geographic Atlas of the Human Journey for more details].

 Cave painting at Paachmari

Undoubtedly the group of australoids who migrated 60,000 years ago were a bunch of hunters/gatherers, still a long way to evolve into a collective who can build intelligent self-contained colony. In fact there are cave paintings, in Paachmari and Bhimbekta caves in Madhyapradesh, India that ASI has dated to be at least from 12,000- 10,000 BCE. The drawings demonstrate that  minds of these early human population in India were mostly preoccupied with animals that they hunt. It probably took at least another 5000 years before they adopted agriculture for their livelihood.

MehrGarrh earthen pot 7000 BCE

That brings us to the question of earliest civilization in Indian subcontinent. The latest evidence shows that India had established agrarian civilization as early as 7000 year BCE. The Mehrgarh excavation brought first time to our knowledge that India had civilizations well before Harappa era. They establsihed knowledge of  building mud-houses and farming wheat and barley. A stone axe and mud-brick house complex were found that date to early Mehrgarh period. Discovery as late as in 2006 established that they were the first in the world to demonstrate proto-dentistry capability. "Here we describe eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Pakistan that dates from 7,500 to 9,000 years ago. These findings provide evidence for a long tradition of a type of proto-dentistry in an early farming culture" [source: wiki/nature]
There is however no evidence of any written language which means that tracing our present language-based identity to Mehrgarh era is moot.
Early Languages in India and Bengali
Linguists claim that earliest spoken language in India was proto-dravidian. Linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were the culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India The next phase in the reconstructed proto-history of Tamil is Proto-South Dravidian. The linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-South Dravidian was spoken around the middle of the second millennium BC, and that proto-Tamil emerged around the 3rd century BC.[source: wiki]
Compared to that, Sanskrit appears only with the Indo-Aryans i.e. at around 1500 BCE. Now as far as Bengali is concerned, the language did not exist before Christ era. Historical evidence tells us that Bengali evolved from Prakrit at around 9th-10th century AD, although Prakrit was not a single language. Prakrit more likely refers to all the dialects spoken in North India when Sanskrit became the language of elites, particularly the academics. Prakrit and Pali are considered to be direct descendent of Sanskrit. They came almost at the same time and were spoken during Buddha's time i.e. as early as 600-700 BCE. In other words, Tamil although is far more ancient language compared to Bengali, Bengali as the language does not appear to share the root with Tamil. Bengali is decidedly an Indo-Aryan language while Tamil is rooted to its dravidian origin.
Language is not the only artefact
 However it will be a mistake to look at the identity issue only through the lens of language. Culture is much larger aspect of identity and language is just one constituent of the culture, a mere communication tool for the population sharing the culture. Migration is more ancient aspect of human civilization and migrant community is known to adopt the culture of teritory that they migrate to. Therefore a better approach would be to trace the migration history to Bengal.
Early Settlers in Bengal to Bengali Empire
"Historians believe that Bengal, the area comprising present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, was settled in about 1000 B.C. by Dravidian-speaking people who were later known as the Bang. Their homeland bore various titles that reflected earlier tribal names, such as Vanga, Banga, Bangala, Bangal, and Bengal." [source: Bangladesh: A country study. Library of Congress. ]
Some argue that the name Bengal is derived from Vanga (Bôngo), which came from the Austric word "Bonga" meaning the Sun-god.
"Stone age tools dating back 20,000 years have been excavated in the state. Remnants of Copper Age settlements in the Bengal region date back 4,000 years. Stone tools provide the earliest evidence of human settlements. Prehistoric stone implements have been discovered in various parts of West Bengal in the districts of Midnapur, Bankura and Burdwan, and also at Sagardighi. But it is difficult to determine, even approximately, the time when people using them first settled in Bengal. The original settlers spoke non-Aryan languages— they may have spoken Austric or Austro-Asiatic languages like the languages of the present-day Kola, Bhil, Santal, Shabara, and Pulinda peoples. At a subsequent age, peoples speaking languages from two other language families— Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman—seem to have settled in Bengal." [wiki]
But there is also mention of Vanga empire in Mahabharata. Vanga was neighbour to Anga which was ruled by Karna.  Bhagadatta was mentioned as the King of Vanga who joined the Kauravas in the battle of Kurukhestra.
 According to Mahavamsa, the ancient Buddhist literature, the Vanga prince Vijaya Simha conquered Lanka (modern day Sri Lanka) in 544 BC and gave the name "Sinhala" to the country. Bengali people migrated to the Malay Archipelago and Siam (in modern Thailand), establishing their own colonies there. ^[source]  Notwithstanding the fact that historians suffer hugely from lack of objective evidence here, one curious piece of information is that present Sinhala [source] is considered an Indo-aryan language like Bengali although regional proximity demands that it should belong to Dravidian language class. Closest relative of Sinhala is the language of the Maldives and Minicoy Island (India), Dhivehi, places that are claimed to be colonized by Bengalees. This kind of supports that claim made in Mahavamsa.
  Coming back to early migration, This page claims that the civilization that flourished in this region before the Aryans came, was the Alpine civilization. The Alpines (Eastern Bracycephalic) from Taklamakan Desert in Central Asia settled in eastern India (Bengal, Orissa and the plains of Assam) and formed the main elements of today's Bengali people. The Alpines were divided into various indigenous tribes: Vanga (south Bengal), Pundra (north Bengal), and Rarh/Suhma (West Bengal) according to their respective Totems.
Greek accounts mention of Gangaridai [spelt differently in different places but is consdered largely the area known as Bengal] empire that existed in the Ganges valley when Alexandar invaded Indus valley. "Among the southern countries the first under the Kaukasos is India, a kingdom remarkable for its vast extent and the largeness of its population, for it is inhabited by very many nations, among which the greatest of all is that of the Gandaridae, against whom Alexander did not undertake an expedition, being deterred by the multitude of their elephants. This region is separated from farther India by the greatest river in those parts (for it has a breadth of thirty stadia), but it adjoins the rest of India which Alexander had conquered, and which was well watered by rivers and highly renowned for its prosperous and happy condition." –Diodorus Siculus (1st century AD). Quoted from Ancient India as Described in Classical Literature, John W. McCrindle, p. 201.
According to Dr. N.K. Sahu's opinion, the illustrious Ganga Dynasty of Orissa (and also Karnataka) were the descendants of the Gangaridai people who migrated to South India from Tamluk (Midnapur) in South Bengal. He further implies that the Gangaridai people inhabited the entire eastern coast of India stretching from Bengal to Kalinga.
"The Nandas who ruled in the 4th century BCE originated from Bengal and they defeated the Shishunaga dynasty around 450 BCE and joined the crowns of Gangaridai (Bengal) and Prasii (Magadha).  Dhana Nanda was the king of this empire during the invasion of Alexander the Great." –Bangladesher Itihash.
Middle Ages till British Rule
 During pre-middle ages [750–1174 AD], the Pala dyansty ruled a large part of Indian subcontinent. Their patronage on Buddhism saw establishment of the largest Buddhist Vihara [Sompura] of India and rise of Tibetan Buddhism [which owes its existence to another Bengali named Atish Dipankar].  While Pala dynasty appeared to have risen from Bengal, the next powerful dynasty in Bengal i.e. Sena dynasty, historians believe to have come to Bengal from Karnataka region. Sena dynasty is attributed to bring back Hinduism and strong caste-system to Bengal.
Muslim dynasties took over shortly after Sena period and ruled Bengal off and on till British won the battle of Plassey in 1757 and established Calcutta as the capital for India for next hundred years.

To conclude, it appears that for a very long time, Bengal has been a prosperous melting-pot of different ethnicities irrespective of language and religion. Although the present Bengalees owe their ethnicities to Dravidian, Aryan, Mongoloid and Australoid predecessors, perhaps that mixing of ethinicities have given them the intellectual diversity and other uniquely Bengalee traits which they are so known for. It also appears that ancient migrants in Bengal adopted Sanskrit as the language pretty early and merged into Indo-Aryan population perhaps many centuries before Buddha was born [5th century BCE]. Because their language at that time was already distinctly Indo-Aryan although not quite Bengali as Bengalees speak today, when they migrated to Srilanka and the far east islands, their language remained Indo-Aryan even after natural evolution of languages, which in a way explains why Sinhala is a distinctly Indo-Aryan.
It appears therefore that the guide's conviction was not entirely misplaced.

How India brought in low-cost computing for masses

More than a decade back, C-DAC launched a word processor called LEAP and an MS-word pluggin which could help people to type in Indian languages using their computer. C-DAC used to provide a layout mapped on standard English keyboard. One could take a print-out and fix that on his/her keyboard to directly type into that language. C-DAC's original software used to support Hindi (devanagari script), Bengali, Gujarati and few more other scripts. That time there was no standard font or codes available and they had to design their own codes. Luckily life is lot simpler now with wide acceptance of Unicode model. Unicode model 6.0 now defines code for eleven Indian language scripts. Good thing about Unicode is it inherently supports transliteration between different languages. It achieves this by providing unique code to each script in a normalized fashion and by requiring that there is a mapping of the codes to English keyboard. Also Unicode Consortium is a large international body with representatives of various nations involved. It, for example, has representatives from Govt of India and India has taken active participation in codifying Indian scripts.
Due to its wide acceptance, multi-lingual support is lot easier to implement for computer applications. Most popular Computer Operating systems such as windows or Mac or android, support Unicode system today. But that is only half of the solution.
While Unicode made it easier to map the language scripts, a big hurdle for Indian users who do not know English, is about using the keyboard. The default keyboard hardware with computer is always tied to English alphabet and mapping to other language is not always tidy. For everyday use, one needs a keyboard that is designed keeping the alphabet of the language of the user in mind. But manufacturing keyboard for different languages makes the product costly, making it somewhat unaffordable for mass use.
That problem, however, can be avoided if the keyboard layout becomes completely virtual. A virtual keyboard layout is simply a Graphical interface and can be designed in software and rendered on a touch screen. So, if one can remove the traditional keyboard, supporting native language in computer is lot easier. With the recent popularity of tablets, the opportunity has presented itself! Thanks to Mr. Steve Jobs and extremely coveted design of iPad, all tablets today support only the touch screen for both display and input device. Keyboard and Mouse are cannibalized in the new world of tablets. This makes it exceedingly easy for manufacturers to create a generalized hardware assembly and produce Hindi, Bengali, Tamil or Chinese tablets without any manufacturing cost. One can develop extremely inexpensive Oriya or Telegu tablet just by enabling the specific language support in the operating system which in many cases is Android by default since it is free.

Aakash Tablet UbiSlate

In other words, tablets provide the technology solution for the problem. It is a computer connected to internet and also can speak Indian languages.
But there is the 3rd aspect that also requires to be addressed to make the tablet affordable for the mass. Govt of India's initiative with Akaash tablet is the right approach to address that dimension. In the support from the Government, Aakash manufacturers found the right incentive to engineer a truly low-cost tablet for Indian users. With Akaash the children learning in his/her vernacular now not only can communicate, he/she can use the computer in his/her language.
This will enable a large section of Indian children who were outside the expensive English school teaching. This indeed is a great example about how the technology can be used to enable the mass.