Better late than Never! (An alibi for tardiness)

Many of us believe this as a truism and have at some time or other in our lives explained our tardiness this way. Is this okay? To my mind, no!

Often times we have seen people arriving late for functions – the more important (!!??) you are, the later will you attend the function seems to be the dictum!

When as a school boy I went to attend a meeting to be addressed by the late Shri C.N. Annadurai –popularly and affectionately address as Anna- a great scholar and a brilliant orator both in English and Tamil. I went because I wanted to hear him not because I subscribed to the beliefs of his party. He was supposed to commence his speech at 8.00 p.m. – an hour considered too late for a school boy to be outside his home but I had my mother’s permission to be late for dinner. 8 p.m. no sign of Anna, 8.30 p.m. no sign of Anna – the organizers were repeatedly telling that he was expected any moment (!) and so I waited. Then I heard someone – looking important and knowledgeable- tell another nearby that Anna had not yet left Kanchipuram – a place about 50 miles away from my place – which meant, given the transport facilities available those days, that Anna will reach our place only by about 10.00 p.m. – too late for an youngster to be out and I was also getting hungrier by the moment. So with lament, I trudged back home. Next day, I came to know that he arrived at about 10.45 p.m. I regret having missed his speech but at the same time felt that the organizers could have been more transparent!

And I learnt, of course, through experience that it was not only Anna who could not keep up time, besieged as he was by his admirers all along his route, others too have this difficulty. While I understand but do not necessarily accept such practice in respect of leaders of the ilk of Anna, I am unable to comprehend why ordinary people also do not keep up timings.

If you have watched the famous Telugu movie ‘Sankarabaranam’, you would have seen the village’s richest man arriving for the concert late, dragging a chair loudly and generally getting noticed by the audience and disturbing the flow of the artiste . And the performing artiste could be seen frowning. I have in real life too seen this. The artiste is engrossed in his/her alapana, niraval or swara and suddenly some commotion of someone coming late and wanting to occupy the first row – can’t he or she sit in the last row unobtrusively?

There, therefore, must be something compulsive  for some people (the ordinary common folk – I was tempted to say cattle class but knowing what happened to someone who used that word I am NOT using it) – to habitually arrive at functions later than the scheduled time.

My wife belongs to a singing group and she always refers to one of her group members as late M – thank God she did not mean that M was no more – she only meant that M was always late for all their singing classes whatever be the time fixed for commencement. If the class was scheduled for 4.00 p.m. M will arrive at 4.15 p.m.; if it was scheduled for 4.30 p.m. M will arrive at 4.45 p.m.  – a compulsive late comer!

Most of us know such people quite well. Every one of us have been late some time or other for our appointments – I still cannot forget how once I was late in reaching the railway station sufficiently late (!?) to see my train leaving the station fairly fast and missing it!

I know a friend whose wife has to goad him to get ready from 10.a.m. for a function at 6.00 p.m.! Such habitual offenders annoy me.

There are of course explanations that we offer – make a joke of it saying Indian Standard Time- as if that explains our tardiness. It has perhaps something to do with our culture where casual attitude to anything is the given norm. Then there are explanations as to why one was late – of course, in Bangalore it is convenient to put the blame on the traffic! But then do we not have to provide for that bit extra time to be in time and not use the traffic jams as an excuse. Will we use that excuse to the airlines and ask them to delay the departure of a plane? Will we miss ‘shubamuhurtham’ at marriages on this count?

To label such casual attitude as ‘inconsiderate’ towards the hosts is perhaps a correct description but that does not absolve them of the guilt of being tardy. We seem to accept this as okay because it is ‘better late than never’. I believe that this is a  much maligned excuse and therefore, move that it be scrapped from our ‘behavioural dictionary’.

Let us be punctual come ‘rain or shine’. Remember that for every 10 people who are on late, there are 90 who make conscious attempt to be at the place on time.

Let us shed our inertia, propel ourselves to be prompt and not inconvenience others.