It is a fact that human races have a persistently consistent worry all the time about the ‘TIME’. Be it past, future or present, Time has unarguably found an important veracity and significance in everyone. A clock decides our motion from the bed and the same decides our commotion. In the phase of life where time rules, everything has become a goal to be achieved and a target to be attained to survive. In parallel to time, travelling has equally become something mainstream in everyone’s life, for, most of the people travel to reach their workplace, college, school, etc.

In the case where a normal man, in a country like India, has to travel a little long from his home to his workplace, ‘DISTANCE’ turns out to be the most concerning factor since travelling absorbs a major part of his watch. Hence, the need for ‘SPEED’ becomes inevitable. Distance, seemingly, rather apparently being constant, time and speed turn out to be two parameters to be pressurized on. Since reaching the destination always is predominantly important, time gets to become constant with speed left out as the only variable parameter. When this is the scenario in India, developed countries like America, Dubai and China rely on ‘time’ more than the distance they ought to travel, for, the distance is nevertheless compensated with the speed they could afford to travel at and hence time is constrained.

On asking the question about, “How long is your workplace, school, college, etc. from your home?” to an American and Indian, it could be observed that the replies would be in two different, but relative formats, one being in minutes or hours and the other in kilometres, miles or meters. This is very much due to the relativity of time, speed and distance and hence, it could be inferred that an American is time bound. It would be hard to conclude India being length bound since the country’s culture plays a role.

India is one such country where, right from the books of history, men work to earn the family’s bread and the women take care of the family within the boundaries of the walls. This system despite having changed to a phase where women have started working, still statistically proves that men are on the front foot as they eventually are the most employed. Hence, with reference to the process of travelling a man would undertake in his day explained earlier, it could be understood that at least 90% of men measure distance in terms of length. While the men do so, 12 out of 15 women in India, on an average, measure distance in terms of time, since a clock is more or less what their day is dependent on.

It is proven that the vocabulary, maturity and knowledge of a man and a woman of the same age are never the same since women tend to attain and infer them at a greater pace. This is yet another reason for the bride to age less than the bridegroom in the Indian context, so as to match the level of maturity and ideologies. Having told this much, yet another important linking notion that ought to be brought in is that scientists and people with high level of Intelligence Quotient expressed distance in terms of light years, which is nothing other than the bettered version of hours or minutes that the Americans and Indian women choose to follow.

These facts passively proclaim the reason for America being developed and India still being in the process of construction. It lies in the insight of a man to perceive, conceive, visualize, measure and progress in the level of thought in a supreme way. These manifestations of truth affirm the probabilities of further explorations and discoveries in the concepts of time, distance and speed since they could also likely be a hindering factor for the respective subject of matter.

The author is Arun Shankar, Architectural Journalist

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own