Sunday, October 26, 2008

Yet Another Temporal Paradox!

Sunday morning. There I was all huddled up underneath my blanket like a turtle inside its shell. I cursorily peeked outside to have a glimpse of the clock before I stuck my head back in again. The hands of the clock met close to 8:45 and continued on their relentless ticking journey. Relieved to know it was still not 9, I was sinking back into a delightful continuum of slumber when I was stirred out it by my roommate's shriek.
"It's 10! We've slept till 10!!!"

She had just gotten out of bed and was now at her desk staring at her computer. I grabbed my cellphone from underneath my pillow. Indeed! It was 9:45 am!
"Daylight saving," she muttered in a low voice.
"Damn you, daylight saving!" I chimed in.


****


Midday. I was poring over my storybook. Thanks to daylight saving and my head heavy with an hour less of sleep I had given up on any hopes of making my day useful. I had vented out my frustration to some friends abroad, and now I was excited about spending a work-free, lazy Sunday.
"You know what? This is so weird. It says everywhere that daylight saving starts on Nov. 2nd this year."
That was my roommate. I quickly googled. Nov. 2nd indeed.. But wait, this can't be true! They must have changed the schedule and advanced daylight saving by a week for some reason. My skepticism was further strengthened by my roommate's conviction that they must've goofed up!
Disbelievingly, I googled for "India local time." 12:22 am. My eyes rolled over to the bottom right corner of the screen. 11:52 am. Daylight saving hadn't started after all. :-|


****


The previous night.
Crazy, repetitive, clicking noise.
"Isn't that the clock ticking super-fast?" half-asleep I mumbled to my roommate.
"What if time would start flying and we wouldn't have to keep in pace and we would get to keep sleeping for days on end?" I vaguely remember making an effort to say this out loud. I might have fallen asleep before finishing the sentence though!


****


We often crave for a day of complete rest. But to have an empathetic clock that understands your sentiments and readjusts itself to give you ultimate, guilt-free relaxation, that's sort of rare, ain't it?

8 comments:

  1. ok... so u need new batteries.. . but tell me something ..the current time diff between india and US is 12 1/2 hrs ... so how did u get 1.22 a.m. in india when it was 11.52 am.. here?

    it's 7 p.m. right now .... and NDTV says it's 7.30 a.m. in india right now!

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  2. rare !! this clock is a fantasy !!! (which never comes true... like any other fantasy :P)

    BTW... I checked all my clocks and recollected my getting up moment after reading the first para.

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  3. Imagine the daylight non-saving in April ... you lose a damn hour of sleep!!! :(

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  4. @Addie: Indeed it's 12.5 hours now. Should be 13.5 in less than a week.
    @Adarsh: Yes, I own a fantastic clock. ;-)
    @Abhishek: I was a bit confused. Thought we'd be losing an hour and not gaining one...Oh well, now looking forward to an hour of extra sleep over the coming weekend. :-)

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  5. jdizzle - not only does daylight savings start this weekend, it goes back. Remember, spring forward fall back. So, it shouldve given you an extra hour of sleep as opposed to one less. Then again, you get the joy of waiting for that one hour of extra sleep this weekend. Enjoy!

    Also, stop dreaming about sleep and just start dreaming (I mean sleeping).

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  6. BTW, this kinda actually happened to me here in Paris, since EU "fell back" one week early. :).

    Here's to wishing for more sentient clocks [and not for ones that run away from you] :)

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  7. //But to have an empathetic clock that understands your sentiments and readjusts itself to give you ultimate, guilt-free relaxation, that's sort of rare, ain't it?//

    I was talking of this clock :P

    kya jd ... makha di aap :D

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  8. @Adarsh: Got that Daroga jee. I just rephrased your statement "this clock is a fantasy." Remember Thomson and Thompson?

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