This morning, when I woke up, I’d lost an hour. Permanently.

Why “lost an hour”? Because Daylight Saving Time (DST) went out of effect at midnight…and when I woke up at 6 am, it was already 7 am. I think, in twenty years of visiting the US, this is the first time I’ve actually been here when the time has changed (or maybe I’ve been here and it didn’t make much of a difference when there are no schedules to be followed? Can’t remember)…and it does feel weird.

And the “permanently” part? Those who live in the US will gain that lost hour back on the second Sunday in November, when DST comes back into effect. But by the end of July, I will be back in India (travelling back home will make me lose half a day, too, but more of that later), and so, I will have permanently lost this hour out of my life.

No, don’t laugh (Like did just now) and give me a reasonable, logical, scientific explanation of how I have not really lost that hour. I have lost it, and that's all there is to it.

But I decided to google about it, and

Here

is the list of countries, listing those which use DST.

I was very surprised to find that India had used DST between 1942 and 1945! When travelling in the north-east of India, in the foothills of the Himalaya (no, I won’t say Himalayas. Him= snow, alaya= home of…it’s not homes, only one home!), I did feel that India should have different time zones….it gets dark in Arunachal Pradesh by 3.30pm, there is a severe power shortage, and having a different time zone would certainly help them utilize more daylight hours..

However, I don’t think Daylight Saving Time over the whole country would help. What we need in India is definitely more time zones…one, at least, for the hills of the north-east of India, where power shortages combine with short winter days to make people’s lives miserable.

But meanwhile, if I get up at 6.30am tomorrow morning, I don’t have an hour to go before Boodi Ma has to wake up and get ready for daycare…we are already at her getting-up time! How most of the states except Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation), Hawaii and the territories of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa (the only places in the U.S. which do not observe DST but instead stay on “standard time” all year long)….manage this shift of the daily schedule, twice a year…is beyond me!