Boston 11 - A Biting Problem

 

Adidas Adizero Boston11 Refuel. Quite a mouthful for a brand-name but it certainly counts as the most unusual pair of marathon shoes I have used so far.

Long ago when I stepped into the world of distance running, shoe-salesmen used to emphasise on flexibility. They would hold up a pair and twist and roll the running shoes, making the heels touch the toes, to show you how easily they would adapt to your feet. Over the years the sales-pitch has changed completely - now they make a big show of how inflexible the soles are. They now sing praises of shoes with rigid soles and claim that flexible, soft soles trigger injuries to your ankle and feet.

I have been using an Asics Amplifoam for a few years now and it has stood me in good stead. Its semi-rigid sole shows little signs of wear but the fabric upper had got torn in a couple places, so it was time to buy a new pair. I checked out a few new models in all the major brand-stores - Asics (old loyalties!), Nike, Puma, New Balance, and finally, Adidas. It is at the last store that the Boston11 caught my attention. 

It was different. Even though it was relatively lightweight, the shoes felt quite sturdy. Being an older model it was also going for an attractive discount. Still,  the compulsive skeptic in me had to  step out of the shop to check the reviews, and confirm that it was not available cheaper online before deciding to make a purchase decision.

A few days later when I took out the Boston11 for my usual Sunday 10k run, I found my feet would not get in easily. Unlike any other pair of running shoes i had used so far, this one had a full fabric sleeve under the tongue which was meant to grip your ankles, but the broader part of the feet would not get in easily unless a shoe-horn was used. Once you managed to get the feet in, the shoes fit snugly on your arch, instep, heel and ankle.

The second problem came up after the 5k stage. The upper part of the sleeve would bite into the bridge - the part of your feet just under the shoelaces - every time the ankle flexed while running. At first I thought the laces were too tight but no amount of adjusting would ease that biting pain in the upper ligament. I looked it up on the web and found that the pain point was exactly at the junction of the superior and inferior extensor retinaculum. Ultimately, I figured that if the extra-long shoe-tongue on the Boston11 was folded inwards the bite would be eased to a large extent.

Was this a common problem for runners using Boston11? 

So far I have not come across any review specifically highlighting this problem. Many of them do indicate that this particular model has a longer break-in period. 

Apart from this glitch the new Adidas  Boston11 has been absolutely solid for road-running. Rigid soles have their uses i guess :)

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REFERENCES & LINKS

Boston 11 - https://www.adidas.co.in/adizero-boston-11-refuel-shoes/HQ3701.html

Review - https://runrepeat.com/adidas-adizero-boston-11

https://sportsmedalabama.com/contents/patient-education/foot-and-ankle/

Shooting with Pancakes

 

Last year when I switched from my old Nikon D90 + 18-105mm kit lens combo to a full-frame Sony A7C I had agonised over right lens to go with it. Ultimately I had opted for a Tamron 28-200 E-Mount. 

It has been a pleasure learning the new syntax of shooting with mirrorless cameras, and the I have been amazed by the versatility of this Tamron lens which can go from macro to a fairly good zoom with sharp images. The lens however weighs over 600g and this sort of cancels out one of the main advantages of the light-weight A7C camera body.

Recently I came across a review of the new Viltrox AF 28mm F4.5 Full-Frame Lens for Sony E-Mount. Weighing just 60g, with dimensions close to a camera lens-cap, this is the lightest and thinnest lenses for e-mounts. It is also attractively priced at $99 (INR 13,000 on Amazon India).

Is it worthwhile picking up this F4.5 28mm "body-cap" lens? 

So far the reviews have been giving a mixed verdict. While the size and portability are attractive pros, the cons seem to be a serious dampener -  body-cap lenses generally suffer from numerous image quality issues such as heavy vignetting and poor image sharpness.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

https://viltrox.com/products/28mm-f4-5-fe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancake_lens

https://www.creative-photographer.com/pancake-lens/

https://www.videolinks.com/viltrox-af-28mm-f-4-5-lens-for-sony-fe-full-frame

Starting with Murakami

 

My first book for 2023 is a book Haruki Murakami wrote a few years ago - "Killing Commendatore" ((Japanese: 騎士団長殺し, Hepburn: Kishidanchō-goroshi).

One issue with eBooks - for better or worse - is the fact that it does not give you a let you get discouraged by the size of a book. This one has over 700 pages - not the regular, non-serial, Murakami but certainly not the sort I would pick up in a hardcopy format. Yet it is just the sort or engaging, fluid prose that keeps you flicking from one chapter to another, until you reach a point when it all seems to end rather abruptly, as though the author himself got bored of stretching the narrative for so long.

I have not yet reached the end though. Like a piece of chocolate that you keep in your pocket,  and keep nibbling on it every now and then, to make it last long, I read Murakami's to slowly discover perspectives I am not too familiar with - food, classical music, and, this time, the world of painters and paintings.

It is worth it. 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Commendatore

* Review - WP 2018 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Commendatore

* Discussion - https://sevencircumstances.com/2019/05/17/an-idea-that-asks-to-be-murdered-killing-commendatore-by-haruki-murakami/

Kokoro

 

I like books that breathe life into familiar streets.

"Kokoro" by Natsume Sōseki begins with a brief description of the streets of Kamakura, Japan, as seen through the eyes of a young student in the early 1900s. Almost a century after the book was written I too made my way  from famous Buddha statue at Kōtoku-In, down from Hase to the road that leads to the main beach where the main protagonist of Kokoro records his first meeting with an older man who becomes his "Sensei", his mentor and guide.

The Sensei is a compulsive loner - a reticent man who prefers to keep to himself. Yet an equation develops between the old man and his persistent, and oftentimes insolent student, which bring up interesting discussion on the nature of life and relationships. I was struck in particular by this observation - 

"You seem to be under the impression that there is special breed of bad humans. There is no such thing as a stereotype bad man in this world. Under normal conditions, everybody is more or less good, or, at least, ordinary. But tempt them, and they may suddenly change. That is what is so frightening about men. One must always be on one's guard."

Gokhale's China

 Indians have been suckers for more than six decades. This was my main takeaway from Vijay Gokhale's recent book, "The Long Game - How the Chinese Negotiate with India".

In this elegantly written book, Gokhale traces the path taken by India-China relations from 1950 onwards - from the time when the government of India became one of the first to recognise the communist regime, of giving it a leg up to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, through its military take-over of Tibet, escape of the Dalai Lama, the 1962 war, nuclear tests, all the way to the border dispute that festers to this day. 

All through this, the author may have wanted to show the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in favourable light but seems to have just the opposite effect. One gets the impression that even though the  IFS may have had some of our brightest officers, as an institution it was slow on the uptake, and, as far as China is concerned, it has been incapable of guiding the political leaders through a prudent course of action. 

One of our weaknesses is that we love to talk. Combine this with our lack of meticulous preparations, the ease with which we can be flattered and what you get is a long line of ineffective negotiators. The Chinese, on the other hand, were always better prepared, weighed each word that was spoken and recorded everything and clearly saw that our eagerness to please, to play the 'good neighbour', was a weakness that could be exploited to tie us down with unilateral commitments.

Over the years, it seems some Chinese tactics have become predictable -- setting the agenda by insisting on 'principles' that suit them; things that they do not want to discuss are stonewalled through silence or deemed "not ripe for settlement"; the interpreter ploy of pretending not to know a language to gain time to think through and formulate a response, etc..

We also seem to have realised that that Chinese diplomats are ideological agents of the communist party- not government representatives amenable to logic or reason. Also their leaders, who prefer to stay in the background to "save face" are actually thin-skinned, and that unsettling them by impugning their self-image and how they want the rest of the world to view them can work to the other side's advantage.

Gokhale laments that the dignified and gracious Chinese negotiators of the past have been replaced by the assertive 'wolf warriors' who tend to display aggression, arrogance, irritation and other disagreeable traits. 

Maybe this is just as well because we seem to be better at handling in-your-face aggression rather than the gentle art of gracious negotiations. 

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LINKS

* Gokhale, Vijay (2021): THE LONG GAME - How the Chinese Negotiate With India, Penguin- https://www.amazon.in/Long-Game-Chinese-Negotiate-India/dp/0670095605

Murakami and All That Jazz

Each time I finish reading a book by Haruki Murakami I swear that I am not going to fall for his formula again. Just like Bollywood script-writers, Murakami too has a set of predictable ingredients in his books - a protagonist who loves eating / cooking, a least one cat, cocktails, jazz music, and a storyline that borders between the vague, the mysterious and the paranormal.

Men Without Women is not a full blown novel but a collection of short stories. It is, as the blurb, says pithily - "...about the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders, and even Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all."

Stories that speak to us all? I am not so sure about that, but then maybe I am just an outlier, a literary junkie who returns returns every now and then for his Murakami fix, to escape the dreary world of non-fiction.

What I love about Murakami's writing is the way it seems to anticipate and guide a readers sense of curiosity. I like the way it describes the familiar cityscapes of Japan - especially Tokyo, and most of all I enjoy the way it introduces you to music - especially jazz classics. As in - “His voice was low and smooth and reminded me of Barry White’s music...” At this point I can read no further until I have searched the net and found out what is so 'low and smooth' about Barry White's music!

In this collection of seven short-stories, I liked "Kino" the best. This one follows the oft repeated, semi-biographical theme of a guy who tries to reboot his life by setting up a bar, on a street behind the Nezu Museum. It is also the story with the largest collection of jazz classics.

Once again I have finished reading the book by telling myself that I am not going to touch another Murakami. It is a promise I am bound to break in a few months.

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LINKS

* Music from the book "Men Without Women":

> Barry White - Greatest Hits - https://youtu.be/Re_f1UOWyNg

> Coleman Hawkins - "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" - amazing bass solo by Major Holley - https://youtu.be/Ylf7s2_tOxo

> Billie Holiday - "Georgia on my mind" -- https://youtu.be/QkYt9r_B8Qw

> Erroll Gardner-  "Moonglow" -- https://youtu.be/yLWbuDFSZ58

> Buddy DeFranco - "I Can't Get Started" -- https://youtu.be/AiqLALvz8Sc

> Teddy Wilson

> Vic Dickenson

> Buck Clayton

> Ben Webster - solo " My Romance" -- https://youtu.be/mgBdid4aFgI

> Rock or Blues - Derek and the Dominos, Otis Reading, The Doors

> Clifford Brown's solos (jazz)

> Percy Faith - "A Summer Place" --(Greatest Hits) - https://youtu.be/DOko--B4CNo

> Francis Lai - "13 Jours en France" -- https://youtu.be/Qz6R9zEfzd0

> 101 Strings - All tracks - https://youtu.be/4Yd2PzoF1y8

> Paul Mauriat - Greatst hits - https://youtu.be/vEAiwmVkL-U

> Billy Vaughan - https://youtu.be/tUJPg3wa1LU

> Frank Chacksfield - Top tracks - https://youtu.be/VATF93NMujk

> Raymond Lefévre - https://youtu.be/B2M6FYWkB8A

> Montovani - https://youtu.be/e7gMxhVPgCs

> Henry Mancini - "Moon River"  - waiting around the bend, my Huckleberry friend... https://youtu.be/WZ8j-X1hq1I

> New -- Gorillaz https://youtu.be/uAOR6ib95kQ of Black Eyed Peas - https://youtu.be/vMLk_T0PPbk

* 2009 post - "Music and Murakami" - https://dinakarr.blogspot.com/2009/07/music-murakami.html

Slavery - Not So Long Ago

 I got my first introduction to the concept of Slavery a few decades ago,  from Alex Haley's book, "Roots". 

This book not only left a lasting impression about this dehumanised life of Kunta Kinte, but also a notion that slavery was something that was the white man created to obtain cheap labour for his plantations in the New World - a rather naive view in which slaves were snatched from Africa, packed like sardines into ships, and sold to sugar and cotton plantations in the Americas.

I did come across other references to slavery in the distant past. The history of Islamic invasions across the Indus River, the enslavement of 'infidels' in their thousands by the Ghaznivid and Ghorid sultanates, as a result of which an entire mountain range got the name Hindu-kush, or 'killer of Hindus', because a large number of Indian slaves had perished while being driven across the central Afghan mountains, to the slave supermarkets of Central Asia. 

That was, of course, the distant past. The most recent news of slavery came from the Middle East with reports of what ISIS or Al Qaida had been doing to the Yazidis and other ethic minorities in Iraq and Syria. Except for this aberration of sorts, my rather simplistic view has been overturned by the book - "Slavery in South Asia" by Richard Eaton and Indrani Chatterjee.

This book is a compilation of essays focusing on different parts of India across the ages.  It now turns out that far from being a rarity, slavery has always been an integral part of empire building in India. 

If the ISIS enslavement of Yazidi women is shocking, you should read about what the Cholas did with captured women for centuries. They developed military slavery to such an institution that captured women were systematically organised into "Velam s", to serve as breeding machines for future soldiers. A practice that has been meticulously recorded in temple inscriptions both by the victors and the vanquished - especially the Pandas and Chalukyas.

Another surprise was the extent to which foreign slaves were brought into India. Mongol invasions (starting 1222 CE) had destroyed the social and economic fabric of the area around the Caspian Sea, and children were being traded for a pittance. So Central Asian raiders to India had entire battalions made of such slaves, and trusted them more than their own sons. Some of these slave-boys went on to become Sultans themselves, starting with Qutub-al-Din Aybak, Iltutmish and Balban, all of whom were slaves of Turkish origin.

Religious sanction, of course, provided just the impetus for a practice that would surely have been hard to accept morally. The Koran was - and is - quite unambiguous - 

"When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads, until ye have made a great slaughter among them; and bind them in bonds; ad wither give them a free discussion afterwards, or extract a ransom; until the war shall have laid down its arms. -- Sura 47:4-5 in The Koran

"Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi" gives the standard value of a 'working girl' as fixed between 5 and 12 tankas, a singing girl between 20-40 tankas...a handsome slave-boy between 20-30 tankas, a working man between 10-15 while "ill-favoured" boys were priced at 7-8 tankas.

Alauddin Khilji had a slave general with a name that combined his price-tag - Malik Kafur Hazar Dinari. He had been captured during a raid into Gujarat and went on to become an army commander who not only stopped the Mongol invasions in the early 1300s but also plundered the kingdoms of deep south - the Kakatiyas, Hoysalas and Pandyas.

Each time there was a successful raid into India, so many people were enslaved and taken away that prices nosedived, and the slave markets collapsed. Ibn Battuta was quite pleased at the bargain rates for which he got slave boys and girls in Delhi; All the Mughals traded Indian slaves for horses from Uzbekistan; Nadir Shah took so many slaves and wealth back to Persia that he did have to tax his countrymen for a few years.

Then we have the amazing Ethiopian slaves, purchased from African kings and Arabs in exchange for Indian textiles. These "Habshis" and "Sidis" formed military backbone of the Deccan Sultanates. So much so that one of them - Malik Ambar - became the de facto king of Ahmednagar and employed among his many Maratha commanders, the father of a boy who was to become Chattrapati Shivaji!

Did the practice of slavery end after the British took over India? Not quite. A British monarch himself requisitioned for "two pairs of slave dwarfs" from India for his entertainment. In the North East of India the practice of slavery continued to the basis for recruiting soldiers into the British Indian Army. 

During the 1800s, more than four rounds of severe famines had ensured that thousands of men, women and children were forced to become slaves under the "Chawmman" system wherein they owed their chiefs for payments for board, or price of food. So when the British wanted cannon-fodder for the trench-wars in Europe, these men were readily signed up by their village chiefs. 

It was only after the First World War that the 1919 Convention of Saint Germain-en-Laye affirmed international desire to secure complete suppression of slavery. This was lated taken affirmed by the League of Nations and then, the United Nations.

This book is a sobering reminder that the dreadful past is a lot more recent that we imagine.

Machuca

"Look at me!", screams 11-year-old Gonzalo. The soldier stops his pushing, shoving and shouting. Amidst the chaos of a military action on a city slum, he pauses as his eyes now notice that the kid he is just tied to detain happens to wear expensive sports shoes, jeans, a nice full shirt...he is also blonde and white. 

Gonzalo is allowed to run away even as his friends are being shot and detained.

Machuca (2004), a Chilean movie directed by Andrés Wood, living through the aftermath of General Pinochet's military coup in 1973. A dictatorship that lasted 17 years, leading to about 15,000 deaths and 2000 who just 'disappeared'.

In this film, I was struck by the role of Fr. McEnroe, of St. Patricks School. An elderly man who has the clarity of thought to foresee the dangers of a society in which there is a wide disparity in the distribution of wealth. In his predominantly White school, he persuades parents to allow poor, indigenous children to attend his school for free. The story revolves around a friendship that grows between a rich white kid, Gonzalo and Gonzalo, a poor, hardscrabble child from a local slum.

 The movie leaves you wondering what would have happened if people like Fr. McEnroe had indeed succeeded in their social integration projects, and if Chile had not suffered so much under dictators.

Power, Prosperity and Poverty

This one is was long overdue. I have been meaning to put down my thoughts about this much-recommended book for a few weeks now. "Why Nations Fail - The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty", was first published more than eight years ago but I managed to finish it only during this ongoing Covid-19 lockdown.

The book covers a broad sweep of history and geography to make its central point -  the importance of institutions. Starting with Nogales a city that sits astride on the border between USA and Mexico the authors point out to the stark difference in levels of development (the average US citizen is 7x more prosperous) The Mexican side apparently is stuck with the extractive, authoritarian institutions inherited from the Spanish while the North American side developed inclusive, democratic institutions , which, in the long run, have clearly made up for the lack of gold and silver mines.

We are shown similar patterns in the rest of South America, Europe (England vs. France), Russia, Africa (Congo, Ghana and Ethiopia), Turkey, the Koreas and China. The amazing extent to Spanish exploitation ("Economienda") in South America came as a revelation. I never knew, for instance, about the extent to which the indigenous people were forced out of their towns and villages into "Reducciones" to serve Spain's greed for silver and gold.

It seems an Inca labour institution called "Mit'a" ('a turn' in Quechua) was revived to cover about 200,000 miles wherein 1/7th of male populations from the Reductions were required to work in the mines at Potosi. On top of the "Repartimiento" system for distribution of goods involved forced sale of goods to locals at prices determined by the Spaniards, and under "Trajin" (the burden), indigenous people were forced to substitute for pack animals, for carrying goods within the country.

While stressing on the importance of inclusive institutions, the authors admit that "No two societies create the same institutions; they will have distinct custom, different systems of property rights and different ways of sharing wealth."

You also realise that much has changed since the time this book was conceived. Under Donald Trump USA is no longer the inclusive, equitable country it used to be. And then we have a completely new set of unknown thrown up by the Covid-19 pandemic and mass surveillance programs. Perhaps it is time to revisit the arguments presented in "Why Nations Fail".

Paz on India

It is interesing to view India through the eyes of Octavio Paz. 

A few days back, a tweet got me searching for the book "In Light of India" at the Dayal Singh Public Library. I had not heard of the book so when went across and mentioned the name of the author to Pankaj, the ever helpful librarian, he looked as though I had reminded him of along forgotten childhood memory. And when he pulled out the book from a corner bookshelf, I understood why. The last time anybody had borrowed this book was in 1997 - more than 20 years ago!

The book itself is a monograph of memories from 1954, the time when Paz was posted to India as a young diplomat. As can be expected, he reflects on the prevailing attitudes and biases of the time: an admiration for Nehru and the "secular" Congress party, and wariness towards the "Hindu nationalist" BJP; a sense of bewilderment over the cacophony of colors, smells that greet a visitor, and the diverse set of people who called themselves citizens of a newly minted republic. One has come to expect such reactions from visiting foreigners but Paz turns out to be slightly different.

Unlike the typical Western view of India what you get here is a unique view of a South American poet and traveller. India's caste system, for instance, is a puzzle he tries to decipher - how did it manage to survive two millennia of foreign invasions and proseletizing? 

"Castes... are not only cooperatives, such as ours, but also solidarity groups, genuine fraternities...this fabric of religious, economic, political, territorial, linguistic, and familial relations gives the castes their extraordinary solidity... Hinduism does not convert individuals; it absorbs communities and tribes, their gods and rites."

Paz notes the strong influence of Mesoamerica in India's cuisine - the word "chili" is of Nahuatl origin for the plant originally came from the Americas...- Another Mexican import "Chico-zapote" is called Chiku is North India and Sapota in the South!

He dives deep into classical Indian poetry and is amazed to find in Vidyakara's anthology of poetry, erotic poems written by Dharmakirti, a Buddhist philosopher and logician who lived in the 7th century.

Yet, Octavio Paz has his failings. The clarity with which he looks at India clouds up when he compares the influence of 'Western Civilization' on Latin America. In his view, the Spanish conquistadors did a great thing by uniting the various tribes in South America, and weaning them away from cycles of war and blood-sacrifice, and introducing to them a new religion in which "sacrifice of a god who became man and spilled his blood to redeem the world". Not a word about the massacre of the Mayans, Zapotecs, Aztecs and Teotihuacanians, or the systematic destruction of a unique civilization, its unique art and architecture, or of the shiploads of gold and silver looted and taken away to enrich Europe! 

If the world is a kaliedoscope, the designs and patterns seen by Paz are unique, but his book leaves you feeling a bit shortchanged, of expecting a real South American perspective, and finding instead, merely another European dressed in a poncho.

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LINKS

- GoodReads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11708.In_Light_of_India

The Ivory Throne

I was not too keen on picking another 500 page tome. Having just finished "The Gene", I was looking for something lighter, something which did not have its notes and index running into a hundred pages.

I had almost set the book aside when I decided to flip through the book one last time. I saw a map of South India in the 1920s and an old sepia print titled "The Matriarchs of Mavelikkara", and got hooked.

"The Ivory Throne" by Manu Pillai is more than just the "Chronicles of the House of Travancore". It is a refreshing new way of looking at the history of a kingdom that has, so far,  seen only the fawning eulogies of erstwhile aristocrats, or the dismissive narratives of Marxist historians.

Pillai's attention is focused on the life and times of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. While this is, no doubt, quite interesting, I find myself drawn back to an earlier phase when Kerala saw, within the span of one century (1400-1500), the influence of foreign ships coming from two different directions.

From the East came came Admiral Zheng who sailed from China to Calicut no less than seven times to during the period 1405 to 1430. His fleets had as many as 250 ships manned by 28,000 soldiers. Even after the Ming emperors decided to isolate themselves, there remained in Kerala a fairly large community of Chinese-Malayali's called Chinna Kribala, with one of its stat sailors a pirate named Chinali!

A few decades later, in July 1497, King Manuel of Portugal sent Vasco da Gama to find the fabled spice gardens of India, with a "distinctly expendable crew of convicts and criminals". Ten months later, he was trying to peddle baubles and trinkets at the court of the Zamorin, Manavikrama. Unable to break the Arab monopoly over the spice trade in the first instance, King Manuel sent an armada led by Pedro Alvarez Cabral in 1500.

The Zamorins of Calicut were obviously nor prepared for Cabral's persuasive methods. Stymied by the Arab traders, he decided to let his guns do the talking. A single day of bombardment from the sea, killed nearly 600 people, and then he went about playing one kingdom in Kerala against another.

Once the dust settled, the natives had their fill of internecine wars of attrition ("Kudipaka") while the Europeans had ended up with a trade monopoly, and then some more. It was not until Marthanda Varma took charge of Travancore in 1729 that things started to look up in this part of India.

"The Ivory Throne" leaves me wondering - when will we have more historians piece together this real history of Kerala? What are the secrets that continues to be locked in genetic markers and mitochondrial DNA of the Mallus who come in all colors, shapes and sizes?


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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Interview - The Hindu - http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/manu-s-pillai-zooms-in-on-the-life-of-maharani-sethu-lakshmi-bayi-in-his-debut-book/article7900248.ece

* Book - The Ivory Throne - http://www.amazon.in/Ivory-Throne-Chronicles-House-Travancore/dp/9351776425