Image: Wikimedia CommonsI just came across this arresting sentence in The Satanic Verses, of all places:

“Turn your watch upside down in Bombay and you see the time in London.”

It appears this is roughly true: Because Indian Standard Time has an offset of UTC+05:30, an analog watch set to Indian time and read upside down will give the time in London — 10:10 becomes 4:40, noon becomes 6:30, and so on. The reverse is also true — a London watch read upside down will give the time in India.

Unfortunately the hand positions are only approximate, and the U.K. observes daylight saving time and India doesn’t, so just now it doesn’t work. Interesting idea, though.