Muttering a curse under my breath to whoever designed time (hopefully it ain't god , god forbid !!!) I check the time on the GE AM/FM clock radio & it seems to scream at me " it is 5.14 pm you moron , look at the all the time you have lost" significantly the time is highlighted in red color the universally accepted standard for danger & a frisson of anxiety passes through .
As I pivot to get off from the comforting troposphere of my bed , my head seems to float into mundaneosphere(don't bother looking it up!!!) , groceries coz we are accustomed to having dinners ,calls to parents in india cause it is the right thing to do ,watching Forest Whitaker in the Last King of Scotland cause we need entertainment , running for 45 minutes/crunching for another 15 cause we need to live long & thrive (as Kaiser Permanente would have us do) , scrubbing the bath room to milky whiteness cause we need to maintain a standard of hygiene much higher than pigs , need to speak to wife lest communication breakdown occurs , need to learn how to indulge in database transactions coz it is what I am paid to do .... & it hits me that another half hour has gone by as I contemplate the evening's line up , wryly I can't help but reflect on the saying about time being like sand in hand , the tighter you hold it , the more it finds a way through the orifices .
Somehow it feels like 24 hours is more than 24 hours back from where I come in India , meals are always often consummated leisurely , breakfast of the champions could be anywhere from a sizzling array of delicacies saturated with aromatic spices that in turn put their extra additional demand on time as opposed to the "eat-cereal-out-the-door-no-questions-asked" we subject ourselves to here . You could punctuate your office trips by landing up at the door step of your sick friend's house . You could factor in regular tea breaks , lunches, catching up on the latest cricket scores,& yet still end your work day with a feeling of accomplishment in time for the challenges that rushhour throws at you . You could be home for one of those interminable cup of tea, sumptuous dinner , calls to & from a plethora of friends in addition to our modern day addition of TV before catching more than their share of 40 winks .
If you are a commie basher , please don't send me any hate mail because I have come to the theory that life is far more leisurely in socialist or neo socialist countries , people actually stop & smell the flowers so as to speak . This is not a diatribe against singularly capitalistic models but merely an honest observation having lived in either dispositions . All I am saying is that If there were a Russian Pink Floyd and if they were to come up with a russian version of their masterpiece Time it might have been tad bit more livelier with more yelps & chuckles in the background than its "putting the fear of god in you & futility of fighting against the tides of time" american version .
Point being the physical time difference between India & the US might be just 8 hours , but in terms of time lived India & US might as well be light years apart .
