My grandfather sent me an email forward about Gandhi and his timekeeping. I’ve found the original. It’s a longish article, but reading it made me very happy. I often get accused of being quite militant in my time-keeping. When I ask someone for the time, “about 9:30” doesn’t suffice. I want to know whether its 9:31 or 9:29. I get jittery or nervous when I’m running late and I make others around me nervous when I’m pacing about expecting them to be ready to leave 5 minutes ago. Anyway, this little anecdote about Gandhi being a chronometrically precise person.

Gandhi’s legendary punctuality had a utilitarian imperative—without it he would never have been able to answer the sacks of letters and streams of visitors that demanded his attention each day. But, as with everything he valued, it had a moral imperative as well. Simply put, time was tied to his philosophy of trusteeship: the belief that just as we do not own our wealth but are trustees of it—and thus have to use it wisely—similarly, we are trustees of our time.