My-Mind-Clock Standard time
I have this friend named Yoshiharu Takamatsu (nicknamed – “Yoshi” for convenience) from japan who is doing a research at my college for one semester. Getting to know him made me realize how different two people living in different countries can be. Our language, culture, food habits, social behavior, everything is different. One peculiar aspect that drew my attention was his punctuality. Tell Yoshi to be at the juice shop at 8. He’ll be there at 8! You wouldn’t even have to call him once to enquire where he is or how much time he’s going to take. He adheres to timings strictly. He’s always there first and has never kept me waiting. Even if I come late, he’ll be there waiting patiently. No complaints or questions as to what took me so long.
But with us Indians Time has a completely different definition. We never stick to timings.
Now let me take you to a typical Indian situation. I and my friend plan to meet at 8 near the juice shop. At 8, you won’t even find a single strand of DNA of either of us. Yes, none of us is gonna be there in time! Now suppose I reach there first, say at 8:15. So, I am like “Oh, I am the first one to come. Thought I’d kept him waiting all this long”. I look around. No sign of my friend. I start pointlessly scrolling through my whatsapp conversations.
5 minutes has passed, still can’t see my friend and I have already sent so many “Hi’s” and “Hellos” to people whom I barely speak to with the hope that I’d engage myself in a conversation to pass this waiting period no matter how meaningless the conversation is. I open facebook to check what’s going on in other peoples’ lives. Instagram is also up next. So, in the next 5 minutes I have read almost all the trolls and jokes on Arvind Khejriwal, Alia Bhatt and Rahul Gandhi, seen all the soccer videos on Instagram, scrolled through some 100 DP’s on facebook and have already come up with a mastermind plan for my startup!
What is taking him so long! So I decide to check his “last seen” on whatsapp to make sure that he’s at least not sleeping. Oh wait! His “last seen” is hidden dammit! I have no other option but to make repeated phone calls at an interval equaling the time it takes to hit re-dial and simultaneously flooding his whatsapp with “Where are you?” messages.
My friend has still not shown up and now I am all finicky and fussy. Some 50 “Where are you?” whatsapp messages have already been sent, 15 phone calls have already been made, the person in the juice shop has handed out some 10 glasses of juices to the customers but I still have no idea about the whereabouts of my friend.
Now negativity starts to creep inside me. Why did I come so early! Next time I am going to ensure that I come at least 45 minutes late. Or wait. Have I been stood up? I am not going to make plans with him ever! Was there a minor flaw in the idea that I had for my startup? NO! My whole idea is flawed and I failed to realize it all this while!
So just when I decide to leave, I see my friend coming up from a distance. And he is like (sounding all casual), “Sorry if I am late bro. Was watching this really cool TV series. Even you should watch it!”
And I am like (pouring out with anger), “SORRY IF I AM LATE?”. Do you even know what time it is? :(
The time was 8:45. Something that was supposed to happen at 8 happened at 8:45. Woah! 45 minutes is long. Long enough for one half of a football match to be played!
So, this is the story that’s very common in India. People don’t show up on time. Unlike my Japanese friend people here don’t value time. What exactly is the problem with us Indians? Inspite of knowing that we have a meeting at 8, why do we show up late? Well, it’s psychological.
That’s because even though our wrist watch matches the Indian Standard Timings, our mind clocks don’t. When somebody calls me to meet at 8, in my mind I have already processed it as 8:15. So I get ready accordingly. Our mind clocks are always 10-15 minutes late than the standard timings. That’s why we are always late. In my case, probably my friend’s clock was 45 minutes late that’s why he showed up so late.
My Japanese friend Yoshi taught me the value of time. So I guess what we all need to do is rewind our mind clocks and set “My-Mind-Clock” standard time closer to the Indian Standard Time. So, the next time you go to see someone, be there on time and don’t keep the other person waiting. :)
