The ferry to Elephanta Island was scheduled to leave from Gateway of India at 3pm sharp. It is 3:30pm now. The ferry is still gently bobbing in its place and occasionally bumping against the stone jetty. Not that it mattered much to Tim Cotton, the professor of history at the University of Cambridge. He’s been in India for almost two weeks and if there’s one thing he has learnt while travelling is that one needs to be patient. And to his great surprise, he’s discovering that he is actually quite a patient man. Quite contrary to the image he has in university circles back home. He also got acquainted with the actual full form of IST. It is not Indian Standard Time. It is Indian Stretchable Time.