India can be rough going for a tourist or a sojourner who is used to the predictability and efficiency of western culture.
I was shocked once at Howrah Railway Station in Calcutta to find a train I was taking waiting at the platform ready to board well ahead of its departure time. I learned soon afterwards that it was yesterday's train which had arrived there many hours late.
As I recall, the watch and the clock in India are more decoration than useful items.
I must hasten to add that I should not be complaining, — not in the least — for once we abandon the idea of the usefulness of timepieces and schedules, life becomes less stressful and more adventurous.
"A poor life this if, full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare," wrote William Henry Davies.
We have no time to stare, because the timepiece is telling us that we should be elsewhere doing something else.
The river-merchant's wife wasn't thinking about time when she wrote a letter to her husband asking him to let her know when he would be returning so she could go as far as Cho-fu-Sa to meet him.
If time's heavy hand had marred the landscape, William Wordsworth wouldn't have heard the Highland Lass's song in the field, norThomas Hardy the song of the darkling thrush.
All Indians are aware of time, but they are not troubled by its curvature or quirkiness.
I was taking a trip once to the temple town of Palani to meet my brother when I realized that the bus was traveling in a different direction.
When I questioned the bus driver, he took a most insouciant attitude and informed me that we were taking a slight detour to a village to attend a wedding reception.
When I returned to my seat a little flustered, the man next to me tried to console me with these words: "I also am going to Palani, sir. Weddings are always fun. You will enjoy yourself, for sure."
He then quoted a couplet in Tamil which informed me that the strangers we meet in life carry messages from God.
"My brother and his wife will be waiting for me at Palani," I said.
"Don't trouble yourself, sir. They will know something happened. You will be able to tell some happy stories when you finally see them."
I looked around and noticed that no one appeared to be agitated by the addition of a wedding reception to the itinerary.
We also visited another village along the way to pick up a photographer.
A boy at a tea stall was dispatched to find and fetch the photographer. Soon, a man carrying a camera and a tripod arrived on the scene. It was clear that he had no prior knowledge that he was to be the photographer at a wedding.
My neighbor on the bus said that we should ask the photographer to take a group photo of all the people on the bus.
"We're all friends now," he said, with the absolute assuredness of a mathematician signing off the proof to a theorem with quad erat demonstrandum.
Today, having lived in the west for over half a century, I am always a little nervous about time, but I wish I could break free from its nettings and take life more leisurely as it comes.
So what if I miss a flight? So what if I have to spend the night in a hotel in a strange town?
On the quotidian list of things to do, I should scratch out a few items, and insert in their place the phrase "explore serendipity."
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Published Newspaper Columns On Travel, Museums, Art, Movies and Music, 1998-2019
No FicciónThese columns were published in the El Paso Times between 1998 and 2019. This selection focuses on the themes of travel, museums, art and music.
