 <p>Its a rails method. You can get into a rails console by <code>rails c</code> and pass <code>include ActionView::Helpers::DateHelper</code>. Then work around something like</p> <pre><code>t = Time.parse("2013-04-19 11:07:37 +0530") time_ago_in_words(t) </code></pre> <p>HTH</p>