Sixth Cultural Post - Time

[Heather Schmitz]

There are some cultures where time is not so much about the agenda and the appointment, not about the activity or the rendevous, but about the people one is interacting with and meeting. In India, time is less stressed, and people treat time with people as more important than being somewhere on time. If a meeting goes longer than expected because the talking is productive and needs to continue, then it needs to continue until it is finished - and this can go on for minutes or hours.  Granted, for official things like trains and business meetings, there is a more Western concept of time, but in rural areas of southern India, time is what you make of it; and you certainly are not looking at your watch every 5 minutes or grabbing food to go.