Indian Standard Time

There are two definitions of Indian Standard Time, or IST. The official definition is the time observed throughout India and Sri Lanka; neither country observes daylight savings time or other seasonal adjustments and there is only one time zone for both countries. Any visitor to India quickly learns the secondary definition. Time is more flexible here. Delays are a normal part of our daily routine and the differing views toward punctuality has been at times a challenging cultural difference for our team. By our standards, you're late if you miss the appointment time by 10 or 15 minutes. In contrast, we've learned that when people send out wedding invitations in India, they set the time of the event one and half hours before the event is actually planning to be underway, to accommodate for IST. This gives our expression of "fashionably late" a whole new meaning. Our generally punctual team is learning not to rush things, to have patience, and to enjoy learning about this and other cultural differences.