Pakistani Standard Time

While the West suffers from the epidemic of ‘time famine’, we Pakistanis are blessed with ‘time affluence’. Time famine, a term coined by Harvard professor Leslie Perlow, refers to the feeling of having a long ‘to-do’ list and not having enough time to accomplish it. An average person in the highly digitised West, according to one survey, checks his phone every six minutes. This is a pointer to the work-related stress as one has to beat deadlines to accomplish tasks. The famous author Arianna Huffington writes, “Today we often use deadlines to imprison ourselves.”

On the contrary, we have plenty of time on our side because our list of ‘to-do’ things is either vague, very short, or non-existent. For all practical purposes, Pakistani Standard Time is not pegged with GMT, but is a flexible, amorphous concept. Like amoeba, you can stretch it into any direction and dimension.

Time affluence is a near constant in our social milieu, with no exception of an individual or institution. Recently, as a fortunate invitee to an otherwise thought-provoking seminar on legal reforms at the Supreme Court, I observed the chief guest arriving late as per the sociocultural script. A few weeks ago, I noticed Friday prayers being observed with a delay of almost half an hour at a popular mosque, even though the time was specified on a sign hanging near the pulpit. Even then, people were arriving late, which meant that it was expected and accepted that prayers would be late.

The only maulana who beats time is Popalzai, whose verdict gives a relief of one roza to the trans-Indus populace during the tough month of Ramazan in scorching summer. Not surprisingly, many of us start Ramazan in Punjab, but end up celebrating Eid in Popalzai’s domain.

Another glaring example of time opulence is the valima, a traditional marriage reception in Pakistan. As per invitation cards, you are often requested to arrive at 8pm and when you reach the venue on time, to your surprise empty tents and catering staff welcome you. To test your patience, dinner will be served at 11pm even in winter, the season most favoured for weddings. A Pakistani tailor is another beneficiary of our time surplus. He will promise you to deliver the stitched clothes before Eid. When you approach him on the promised date, he will demand more time on the assumption that you are time-affluent, and he will invariably blame the prolonged load-shedding for the delay.

The security plans of the police also follow the same pattern. If a VIP is supposed to arrive at 2pm, the DPO orders the police to be deployed at 12 pm and to be doubly sure, the local DSP orders mobilisation at 11am which the SHO moves yet again to 10am. When the VIP does arrive (at around 4pm or even later), the constables on duty have already lost their concentration and try to overcome their fatigue in the nearby deras and hujras or by sipping tea at a roadside khokha. Similarly, our offices are like tourist resorts or cafeterias. Friends and relatives will drop in unannounced. Expecting protocol, they will order a doodh-pati and will end up staying for lunch, which will surely earn you a favourable reputation as a generous host, in the evening grapevine of your hometown. The direct outcome of denying culinary protocol to our visitors will result in our thinly-attended janazas when the time comes. I feel that every cup of tea during office hours results in a loss of 60 minutes to the national exchequer.

We are a truly Parkinsonian nation as we faithfully follow Parkinson’s Law, i.e., “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Since time is abundant and time frames are seldom followed, work expands as we don’t begin any enterprise and project with an end in mind. For example, the Lowari Tunnel was conceived in the mid-1950s to connect the Chitral valley to the rest of Pakistan. Inaugurated by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the mid-1970s, it is still under perpetual construction in the second decade of the 21^st century.

We Pakistanis are also poly-chronic in our approach to time, contrary to the mostly mono-chronic West. The mono-chronic people undertake one task at a time, as in the case of Germany, Switzerland, the US and the UK. The poly-chronic carry out many tasks at a single time: texting someone, reading a report, talking to visitors in the office, eating samosas with tea, sending an e-mail and so on. The poly-chronics generally prefer maintaining relationships over accomplishing of tasks.

This is applicable to Africa, the Middle East and many parts of Asia, including Pakistan. The famous poem of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, “Kuch Ishq kia, kuch kam kia”, clearly depicts this culture, where relationships and work are blended together and in the end, both remain unaccomplished.

Fortunately, the blessings of time affluence are not restricted to Pakistan alone. The Afghans next door are even more affluent in this commodity. Dragging the West into a long war, the Taliban usually boast that “Americans have watches with them, but we have time on our side”.

Here’s to hoping that this philosophy doesn’t drag us from the space age to the stone age, nor that it end up defining us as a tea-sipping nation.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2015.

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