A large number of citizens in Assam took to the streets to protest against the government’s proposal of formulating a new time zone for the state, citing that the very thought of not seeing their local hero, Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami on television at 9 pm poses grave inconvenience to them.

“People say this new time zone which are going to follow will help us improve productivity and all that, but look at the flip side – we might get to see our Arnab dada as late as 10 pm and this has consequences of epic proportions – our dinner timings are screwed, our sleep cycle is also screwed. We’ll end up beginning dinner only at 10 pm, which is quite unhealthy. This also means that we’ll end up sleeping real late and will have to get up real early, may be at 6 am Assam Time, which might be, say, 5 am for the rest of India. Our hours of sleep every night would be reduced considerably and this will impact the overall health of Assamese in the long run,” said Arjun, a protester in Guwahati.

Thousands of Assamese have already submitted a petition to Arnab, to crack down on Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi against setting up the time zone. “One of us earlier went to speak to our MP and PM, Dr.Manmohan Singh to urge him against this time zone. But he couldn’t understand our accent at all. He said history will take care of everything and went off. That’s when we decided to approach our and the nation’s real saviour, Arnab dada. Now, we just can’t wait for Arnab dada to have Gogoiji on The Newshour and yell things like ‘HOW DARE YOU?’ and ‘never ever ever ever’ at him. More than our protests, that’ll be the strongest message Gogoiji can get,” exclaimed another protestor from Silchar.

The only section of Assamese who remained totally unfazed were students of IIT Guwahati. “Big deal, yaar. We anyway keep studying all day, all night. As it is, we have no idea when we’re eating, on which day we’re bathing and for us, sleep is something as long gone as Dr.Manmohan Singh’s respect. What difference will it make to us if time is going to change?” reasoned gold medalist Hemendra.