Minutes Matter

NO, THIS IS NOT ABOUT the Minutes of momentous meetings, the staple for all organisations. Nor are we reinforcing the fact that the devil is in the detail, that small ("minute") things are often crucial.

- KIRAN KARNIK

The reference here – the theme of this piece – is to time, to that unit of it made up of sixty seconds, the one used in formulating the minute-to-minute programme insisted on for VIPs.

Time is transient and irretrievable. Though absolute, its perception varies. A minute can seem like aeons while waiting for a website to open, and yet an hour passes in a jiffy when long-lost friends meet. Sometimes, even a fraction of a second makes a difference. Tyson Gay ran a 100 m race in 9.69 seconds in 2009, but missed beating Usain Bolt’s world record (9.58 seconds) set a month earlier. How that tenth of a second matters!

WORLD IN A HURRY

Time’s contextual nature is exemplified by the Hindi word