Sunday, March 25, 2007

I moved in time and I didnt know it!

The prerequisite for reading this post is that you should be aware of the crazy policy of daylight saving time that is followed in most parts of the northern western world. I had first experienced it and actually learnt what it meant on the last sunday of the October gone by. It was the day when we had 2am twice :D. That was the day when our timezone got back to GMT from BST (which is GMT+1). And I knew that we would get back to BST i.e lose an hour on the last sunday of march i.e today. But I somehow crazily assumed that it would be on the night of sunday (that is 1am of monday) rather than the early morning of sunday.
So, now that you have been provided with the background, lets get down to the story :D.

It was around 12:30am on 25th mar'07 (late saturday night, early sunday, whatever). We were at a pub with some nice music going on. I prod my friend to go ask the DJ (who seemed to be resting his ears, having taken off his headphones) at what time the pub would be closed. I watch the conversation that goes on between them and notice that the DJ signals both 1 and 2. My friend comes back shaking his head and says, "the DJ said it would close at 1 i.e 2 or something like that". We concluded that maybe the bar would be closed at 1 and that we will be kicked out at 2. Anyway, we left the place at 5 minutes to 1 and started walking back.

We reached my room and noticed that the time on the computer was 2:30. I was flabbergasted. The walk was supposed to take half an hour. It felt so too. But somehow strangely, we apparently walked for 90 mins. Anyway, at that time we were in no position to deliberate on this matter further.

I wake up in the morning and start chatting with my friend Gyan. Soon, he says that his lunch was served and goes away. I notice that the time then on the computer was 9:30am. That would mean that back in India it would have to be +5:30 hrs i.e 3pm, a little late for lunch. But, anything is possible with Gyan, so I ignore it. Then, I go back to sleep again.

The phone rings and wakes me up. After the conversation, I check the time on the small ancient analog battery clock on the table beside the phone and see that the time it displayed was 9:35. I couldnt have slept for just 5 minutes. I felt like I had a restless sleep of much longer duration and I recollected even having a couple of dreams. It couldnt possibly have been in 5 minutes. Intuitively, I check the time in my cellphone. It displayed 10:35. So either my dear clock had slowed down considerably or we have jumped ahead in time and I didnt know it. So, I rush to the pc (which also displayed 10:35 by the way) and check when exactly we would have saved daylight. And realised that it was 1am on the sunday morning. Yeah, while we were walking back. We started before 1 and reached at 2:30, though we had walked for only half an hour :D. And then everything else fell into place. Why the DJ was so confused whether the pub closed at 1 or 2, why Gyan was having lunch so late etc.

The conclusion? Having smart devices like a computer and cellphone which take care of such weird happenings like Daylight Savings automatically sometimes renders us oblivious to some of the joys in life like jumping ahead in time. Thanks to my small antiquish table clock. Otherwise, for anytime soon, I wouldnt have realised that I had missed an hour! I even wonder that some people in these parts of the world who do not have interactions with people from other time zones may not even realise this event most of the time. They may fall back an hour in their sleep and they may jump ahead an hour. But they may not notice that. :)

Trivia: This post was written to prove to the sage that I wasnt in a dreamy state and that I was making coherent sense :D.

9 comments:

agastyabhrata said...

I am extremely happy that I am in a place where I do not need to crave for daylight and need such *crazy* means of saving daylight.

Thanks for writing this post. I am now glad that you aren't "day-dreaming" :P

Su said...

Ure slowly becoming a dumb dullhead dodo. I mean for real!
u wrote such a long post abt DST and ur associated dumbness that went along with it?!

and ppl will come read this!!
gah!

@my_dear_aggibarata: imagine a day which is bright as day even at 7.30pm
also, imagine a day which is pitch dark at 5pm.
The joys of the upper latitudes of the northern hemisphere!

Anonymous said...

yeah.. nothing like futbol in bright sunlight @ 7pm :)

Anonymous said...

Told you, british people are dumb!

Anonymous said...

rofl @ Su's comment :D

Anonymous said...

lolz @ arrogant Su...

dood u nida tke a brek

Anonymous said...

Thats seems like a crazy system..

Anonymous said...

you might want to write that DST is followed in most parts of the world... not just 'northern western world'?

mythalez said...

@sage, u knw nothing of the pleasures of havin sunlight late into the night :P .. on the other hand u do not knw the pain of it being completely dark before evening :P

@su, shoo ... off u go.

@paccha, hehe

@playboi, its not jus brits who do this, it everyone in these parts of the world and in some other parts also.

@kunal, hmm .. su's comment seems to be more attractive thn the post :P

@su la loo, interesting name :P

@karan, is it? :P sure?

@anonymous, i dnt knw abt the most parts .. i was sure abt these parts.