Indian Stretchable Time - My New Best Friend

Indian Standard Time or IST is officially the time zone for India, which is 9.5 hours ahead of Eastern Time (and 10.5 hours ahead after Daylight Savings ends next week). But I've also heard IST referred to as Indian Stretchable Time. As far as I can tell Indian Stretchable Time = LATE. I think IST is wonderful. Where else can the punctually-challenged like myself thrive?

IST allows me to show up at the office at 10am and no one thinks anything of it. It enables me to say I'll be there in 10 minutes when I really mean 30. Unfortunately, it also means that lunch isn't until 1-2pm and dinner often isn't served until 9pm or later. This part will take some getting used to.

What are the reasons for the culture of lateness? I have no idea, but I don't really mind it at all. It's nice to have a slower (later) pace of life. Traffic is one possibility as there is no rhyme or reason to it. Every hour is rush hour. Maybe it's because the car up ahead is on fire. Or maybe the elephant walking in the street is going too slowly. Or possibly, it's because there's a rickshaw driver who's stopped in the middle of the road to ask for directions for the fifth time. Or maybe it's just that there are so many people, cars, trucks, buses, motorbikes, richshaws, bicycles and animals on the road at the same time.

And I realized today that the traffic excuse is a truly acceptable and understandable one here. This afternoon I was headed to a meeting (see, I am working here!) just outside of town and encountered a monster traffic jam. Apparently, it was the result of the road being closed because a foreign minister was passing through. The entire road just closed. Fortunately, my driver convinced me to let him turnaround and I rescheduled my meeting for tomorrow morning. Although it was a bit of an inconvenience, it definitely beat sitting in traffic for another 2 hours and arriving embarrassingly late for my meeting. Or maybe I would have been considered on time after all?