Reflections on Timeliness in Travel and Publishing
On the night of 11 October 2026, I departed from London Heathrow for Bengaluru on an Air India flight. The scheduled time of departure was 10:10 p.m., while the ticket stated that arrival in Bengaluru would be at 1:45 p.m. the following day, 12 October. Thus, before me lay a clearly defined arrival time, and from it one could readily estimate the length of the journey.
Hardly had the aircraft spread its wings into the vast expanse of the sky when the captain announced that our flight would last nine hours and thirty minutes. I quickly made a mental calculation and realised that, in comparison with the times printed on the ticket, this was almost two hours shorter. What was the matter? Does the velocity of time in the heavens differ from that on earth, or do the wings of the aircraft, together with speed, possess the ability to fold up time itself?
In any case, the plane continued at its determined pace and finally landed at Bengaluru Airport earlier than the time printed on the ticket. The captain joyfully declared that we had arrived an hour and a half ahead of schedule. A smile came to my lips. I thought: when the stated arrival time has already been placed so far ahead, reaching before it is no extraordinary feat. It is as though the passenger is first prepared mentally for a long wait, only then to be given the glad-tiding of deliverance from that wait: “See, we have arrived ahead of time!”
This incident illumined in my mind a most delightful memory. I recalled my honoured teacher, Mawlānā Saʿīd al-Raḥmān ʿĀẓamī—may Allah have mercy upon him—who departed this transient world last week, raḥimahu’Llāhu raḥmatan wāsiʿah. His personality was a beautiful fusion of learning and grace, dignity and composure, breadth of reading and refined scholarly taste. Among the people of knowledge, his speech was not mere information; it was seasoned by the maturity of experience, and the anecdotes he related would often unravel life’s intricate matters through a subtle example. To remember him even today fills the heart with reverence, and gatherings of learning and literature are illuminated by his mention.
Every issue of the Arabic journal al-Baʿth al-Islāmī, edited by the late Mawlānā, would leave the press a full month before its due date. The April issue would be published already in March, and the May issue would reach the hands of readers in April. It was as if the journal would not wait for the calendar to grant it permission to meet its readers; rather, it would knock upon the threshold of the coming month in advance.
Hearing this for the first time, I was both surprised and curious. I therefore asked my friend ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Nadwī, who managed the journal, about the secret behind such punctuality: why did the journal appear every time before its designated month? Had the flow of time accelerated in its editorial office, or had the staff learnt the art of moving ahead of the calendar?
ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Nadwī replied that their aim was for the journal consistently to reach readers before the appointed time, so that people would be impressed by their adherence to deadlines. From his answer I understood that a successful institution does not merely focus on completing its work; it also concerns itself with the moment that work reaches its audience and the impression produced thereby.
Without doubt, this was an excellent example of administrative finesse and an acute awareness of time. If the April issue arrives in April, that is publication in the ordinary sense; but when the same issue reaches readers in March, it becomes a mark of foresight, alertness and well-organised planning. For an institution that values time, it is not necessary always to wait for the final date. Rather, it is better to create sufficient leeway in the completion of one’s tasks such that readers obtain their desired material on time—or even ahead of time.
Today, this flight from London to Bengaluru revived in me that very reminiscence of the late Mawlānā. Something similar occurred on the Air India journey: the actual flight on one side, the arrival time printed on the ticket on another side, and the captain’s proclamation of early arrival on yet another!
I reflected that institutions across the world, each in its own way, endeavour to guarantee punctuality and to afford reassurance to their passengers or readers. Some organise their publication system so that a journal appears a month early, while others allow flexibility within their aviation schedules so that a flight succeeds in landing before the stated time.
