About

“TIMEZONE – IST: INDIAN SLAVE TIME” Explores the Hidden Human Cost of India’s Global IT & BPO Culture
A sharp, satirical and deeply relatable look at midnight meetings, global timezones, family sacrifices and the price that never appears on a salary slip

INDORE, INDIA — September 2026 — What happens when your working hours belong to someone else’s timezone?

That question lies at the heart of TIMEZONE – IST: INDIAN SLAVE TIME, a new book by Hemendra Swami that takes readers inside the everyday reality of India’s IT and BPO workforce supporting clients across the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and other global markets.

Through humour, satire and relatable workplace situations, the book explores a familiar corporate paradox:

The world may operate across different timezones, but the burden of adjusting to those timezones is often not equally shared.

Midnight meetings. “Quick calls.” Weekend deployments. Early-morning escalations. Missed family occasions. Constant timezone calculations. The pressure to communicate in a particular accent. And the quiet expectation that the Indian employee will simply adjust.

The book asks a deceptively simple question:

“Whose time is it anyway?”

At the centre of the narrative are characters such as Ravi, Ankit, Meena, Priya, Ramesh and Rajesh—employees whose professional lives unfold between office clocks, client deadlines and family responsibilities.

One scene captures the contrast particularly sharply:

“One man celebrated his daughter’s birthday. Another missed his. Same job. Different timezone.”

The book also examines the irony of the onsite experience. An Indian employee who once struggled to accommodate a client's timezone may eventually move abroad—and find himself expecting an entire India-based team to adjust to his convenient working hours.

The result is not simply a story about timezones. It is a story about power, globalization, workplace culture, identity and the human cost of professional success.

As the book puts it:

“CTC — Cost to Company.
Perhaps sometimes it quietly becomes: Cost to the Employee.”

Sleep, weekends, family time and personal well-being can become invisible deductions from the compensation package.

Importantly, TIMEZONE – IST: INDIAN SLAVE TIME is not an attack on any country or group of professionals. Instead, it uses satire to question workplace habits and assumptions that have developed around global outsourcing—and asks whether global collaboration can become more balanced and humane.

About the Author

Hemendra Swami is an author, poet and storyteller whose writing draws upon observations of India's evolving workplace and corporate culture. Through humour, satire and human stories, he explores the experiences that often remain unspoken in professional life.

Book Details

Title: TIMEZONE – IST: INDIAN SLAVE TIME
Author: Hemendra Swami
Genre: Satirical Nonfiction / Workplace & Corporate Culture

Available Editions

???? Paperback Edition (India):
Amazon India Paperback https://amzn.in/d/0fY5H226

???? Kindle Edition (India & International):
Amazon Kindle Edition https://amzn.in/d/04u4gYOi

???? Paperback Edition (US / UK / Australia / International):
Amazon International Paperback https://a.co/d/0hzvbJ6M