There is a strange disease spreading through society, and it is called cultivated lateness.

It is not caused by traffic, monsoon potholes, or missing auto rickshaws.

It is caused by insecurity.

Some people do not arrive late because they have to. They arrive late because they believe it adds importance. To be kept waiting, they feel, is proof that the other person matters.

Watch the chief guest at a function. The audience has assembled, the organisers are sweating, the tea has grown cold, but the great man is “on the way.” Which in our country can mean anything from ten minutes to eternity. Then he arrives, smiling, adjusting his shawl, receiving flowers as if the delay itself deserves applause. All because somewhere we have confused making others wait with being significant.

I have seen it at weddings too. Guests drift in when the soup has become history and the ice cream is beginning to melt. They do not walk in. They make an entrance. They scan the room to see who has noticed. Importance, after all, must be observed.

Even in business meetings there are those who believe arriving late suggests they are in enormous demand. “Sorry, tied up in another meeting,” they whisper importantly, though one suspects the previous engagement involved a samosa and a second cup of tea. Yet lateness is worn like a medal.

And I often think it has less to do with status and more to do with insecurity. The insecure man wants people glancing at the door. He wants the room to pause when he enters. But secure people do not need delay as decoration.

My father taught me something very different. He would say, “Be on time, son, because being punctual is respecting the other person’s time.” He made punctuality not merely a habit, but a courtesy. To be late without reason, he believed, was a quiet form of arrogance. I have carried that with me all my life.

Because when you keep someone waiting, what are you really saying? That your time is worth more than theirs. And what is that but insecurity dressed up as importance?

The irony is that truly important people often do the opposite. They come on time. Sometimes early. They do not need theatre to establish worth. Their confidence does not depend on a dramatic arrival.

Maybe we have misunderstood prestige all along.

The man who makes a room wait may look important. But the man who does not keep a room waiting is important.

One seeks attention. The other has stature.

Lateness is a performance of power by the insecure, while punctuality is the quietest form of nobility by those who are secure in themselves.…!

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