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In the months since my return to India, I have spent a great deal of time just waiting. At home, I have waited for the plumber, the electrician, and the phone and Internet connection guy. Outside the home I have waited in banks, post offices, restaurants, and doctors’ offices. While my toes twitch and impatience settles like a mask around my face, I find others calmly reading last week’s newspaper, looking around aimlessly or engaging in animated conversation with total strangers. This apparent lack of urgency and comfort in the leisurely pace of activity would have helped me slow down if I had not become used to something entirely different.
Everywhere in India drivers race devilishly in front of lumbering trucks and trains. People jostle and push each other at bus stops and in vegetable markets. It is almost as if their lives depend on getting to their destinations or completing their tasks in record time. This is in stark contrast to the more disciplined and courteous ways that are prevalent in America. However, it is adjusting to the all-pervasive concept of Indian Standard Time (IST) that has been more difficult than I had imagined.
In the book May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons author Susan Bumiller, a Washington Post reporter who spent four years in India during the 1980s, makes an astute observation about Indians’ attitude towards punctuality. Describing her experience at one Indian wedding she notes, “The wedding started ‘on time,’ a mere two hours behind schedule. I arrived only a half hour later thinking this would be socially correct, and found myself alone with the caterer.”
I too have found myself alone while the caterer sets up dinner at Indian gatherings. This has happened in India as well as in the United States. And, when hosting dinner parties of my own, I have waited impatiently for my Indian friends to arrive.
“How about seven?” I would ask.
“Sure,” would be the enthusiastic reply.
But, on the evening of the party, the guests would show up at 8:00 pm—if I was lucky. If not, they would start trickling in by 9:00 pm and by the time I had a full quorum, it would be time for the earliest arrivals to begin departing.
How does this careless disregard for time take root in the Indian psyche? Indian schools continue to emphasize the value of being punctual. Repeated late arrivals are frowned upon and quite often considered a punishable offence. But, within the confines of the same school premises, it is common to find school functions starting an hour or two late. The worst offenders are the chief guests. The incongruity of the situation is not lost on the bright kids who can clearly discern the difference between “Do as I say” and “Do as I do.”
In colleges, timings may not be as rigidly enforced, but examinations are always time-bound. I am reminded of a friend who arrived three hours late for an exam and had to wait another year to re-take the same exam in order to graduate. All these lessons are good preparation for Indian work-life where hours are rigorously monitored. Most offices have well-defined work hours and appropriate monitoring methods to enforce them
The scope of IST extends beyond mere punctuality. Within the rigid confines of office hours, work is approached with a certain detachment. This is why you wait an hour at the pediatrician’s office, even though you made an appointment and arrived on time. The appointment only means that the doctor’s office has given you the go-ahead to come in and start your wait at the agreed-upon time. IST also comes into play when the carpenter assures you that the work will be completed by Friday. While you naïvely interpret it as the first Friday after that promise, it actually means an indeterminate Friday in the near or distant future.
In a recent article about a visit to Greece, an Indian author experienced a feeling of kinship with the Greeks. Like Indians, they too were not particular about privacy or punctuality. If punctuality and adherence to timelines is not some geographically-defined or genetically-inherited predisposition, is it a cultural trait shared by people descended from ancient civilizations? I wonder if, when time hangs in installments of centuries, the hours are nothing but mere blinks in the long continuum.
Apart from speculating on the reasons for Indians’ well-documented penchant for tardiness and their laid-back attitude, I sometimes wonder if this disregard is a possible cause for our general indifference towards loss of life. When great natural or man-made disasters occur in India, the death toll is fairly substantial. Although fully aware that these numbers may have been grossly under-reported, the magnitude of the numbers barely registers. In contrast, loss of even a few lives gets much wider media coverage in other countries. “Is Indian life undervalued?” This question frequently arises at such times. Usually we brush it off since the casualties add up to only a small fraction of the total population. Also, the daily business of life beckons.
But what is life if not a continuous and finite thread of time allotted to each of us? By letting this resource that cannot be replenished slip through our fingers, are we not wantonly wearing out our precious moments as we hang precariously from this thread?
Putting the philosophical argument aside, practically dealing with IST in daily life is particularly frustrating because your life is so intimately enmeshed with the lives of those around you. Both at work and outside, I find myself alone and helpless, racing beside the vast majority that slowly marches on at a completely different pace. I know I cannot change my fellow countrymen. So, it is up to me to train myself to adjust to IST.
One morning, as I wait for a meeting to begin, I find myself uncharacteristically calm. When I ask, “What’s the rush?” I surprise my colleagues as well as myself. Perhaps I am starting to imbibe the pace of my new environment.
