Vignette number 2: India time

India believes in deadlines, but they are a much different concept to what other cultures may perceive them to be. Indian deadlines are tricky because they seem to be dictated more by emotion, hunger or happenstance than by time itself. There are possibly historical reasons why these folk are not able to stomach time as a non-spatial linear continuum. Whatever these reasons, their manifestation is apparent in the psyche of the country.

To begin with India, in its perversity, has only one time zone. Secondly, India is unfinished. It always has been, and presumably will remain this way. Consequently Indian historians were unable to draw any point of reference against which a periodic interval between events can be quantified. Doubtless at some point they just gave up trying (this point of course would be unknown to them), and the notion of punctuality was shot into oblivion.

Indians have added a few idiosyncrasies to their methods of dealing with time that are very successful in protecting their ignorance of it and confounding those who abide by it. When attempting to solicit a commitment to any time based request, one may find themselves utterly bamboozled by an Indian technique of gesticulation that allows a simultaneous delivery of both a nod and a shake of the head. The most plausible explanation for this is the Indian’s development of an additional rotational axis in their skulls that permits such an action. This is impressive to watch but maddening to receive.

In case this first line of defence fails and the recipient has managed to draw a conclusion from the exchange, then an Indian may conjure further befuddlement. This is usually in the form of a somewhat loose verbal acknowledgement that resembles ‘ok’ (itself a nebulous expression). Even in English this idiom’s function can range from assent to dismissal, yet the Hindi language has taken this concept and engineered it into at least three separate versions – all with minute but crucial differences in implication. It’s difficult to know exactly when one version is more appropriate than another – presumably it’s dictated by emotion, hunger or happenstance. Of course to an outsider it’s all gibberish, but extremely powerful in its capacity to screen an addressee from any semblance of an explicit answer on anything.

Of course, even if one manages to wring a time commitment from one of these folk, there is still no guarantee that it will transpire as decided. India time is a mechanism with a patchwork of inbuilt countermeasures designed to ensure that meetings are postponed, flights cancelled and any other rendezvous scuttled. With notable regard to any international arrangements made that include India, it also seems that India time has the ability to trump any other conflicting treatment of time.

India time is a phenomenon that Chronos himself would find impossible to straighten out. However it does have one redeeming feature – you’re never late for anything.