‘Be on tekdi at 5:30…’, ‘Tomo morn futbal at 7…’,’ B in B in 8 mins…’ and so on.

These are some of the SMSs received (a little variation in the time and place and the activity) almost everyday. And it’s funny, because even for the small time lag, no one ever pays top priority to any of these timings.

No one and I mean no one ever arrives at the time decided. And its somehow a understood thing that when someone says a certain time, that everyone arrives a little* late. Each one expects this way that when he/she arrives, all will be there so that he/she won’t have to wait for anyone. Only to find out that he/she has arrived the earliest. And I don’t know how, but this goes on be it any thing. Now for a game of football suppose, who ll like to arrive late? But no, still people break records and arrive 45 mins after the decided time. Till then hardly 2-3 people arrive, just sitting and giving missed calls.

There is no reason for its origin. Though I guess we can think of some options. Like some people meet regularly and there is one person who is the eternal late comer. So to adjust with him/her, so that no one feels that he/she arrives too early, people start coming a little late. This way now all are on time relative to one another. So that now they can do the thing they intended without any lag.

Now everyone of this group has been affected with this disease (or can we say habit), so that they start spreading it. Like they say, one bad apple in the basket spoils the rest.

Now how late can one be tolerated? It’s a relative question again, but I guess it depends on the purpose of the get together. Also, is there a way to tackle this?

I don’t understand yet another thing, that if everyone knows that when a time of say 6 pm is decided, and that all are going to arrive at 6:15 then why not say 6:15 itself, and arrive then right on time. How long can we go on extending this, without getting caught up in the recursive nature of this method, that whenever our mind analyzes a certain time, it automatically adds the lag and then processes on it. If there as such really exists this algorithm, then can't there ever be a stage that we state a time right and the mind analyzes it right so that all arrive at exactly the time stated?

Okay, still this isn’t all that the problem is. Even with by afflicting each and every person, we all start arriving 15 mins late, so that still, all arrive on time relative to one another (a little here and there of course). So its all well and good.

But then there will always be this one person, who says he/she still wants to arrive the last. So now he/she starts adding another 5 mins. Now he/she won’t be the only one of course, so that he/she will spread this disease to all the others. So that the mind of each starts adding 20 mins, instead of 15.

Will this too stop at some time? The additions will go on I guess, so that people start arriving more and more late. But this addition mostly is decreasingly exponential, so that after a few iterations I think it will be small enough to neglect. I don’t know the actually case, but I do hope this is the case. Else time really will have no meaning.

I guess what you can do is talk it amongst yourselves and start understanding each other better so that you can avoid this at the bud stage itself. It will be difficult for you to handle it if you don’t heed it well in advance. Or else, just go with the crowd as usual.

Nothing much to ponder over actually. It’s a hard reality, so just accept it.

Santa said ,”Lets meet at 12 exaclty?”
I said, ”Par aapke 12 kab bajenge?”

*Little- the term little is relative here. It varies from 10-15 mins to half an hour or so, or sometimes not at all…