Ashok Vemuri’s Blog

One of the nice things about living in San Francisco bay area is the “Indianness” of the place. There are so many Indians here you don’t feel like you are too far away from your home town in India.

With lot of Indians come lot of Indian parties to attend. Parties where most of the folks tend to come late. Almost as a rule, especially if it involves other Indians. For example, if I throw a party and invite 50 Indians to it, I can guarantee that at least 40 of them will come late. Some of them will be way late. Now imagine an American friend as the host, and the same 50 folks as guests – most of the guests will make it on time!

The point here is, we Indians tend to feel much less obligation for punctuality towards other Indians. At least, most of us don’t. We take it for granted. No matter where we live, no matter what we do for a living, it just doesn’t seem to be a trait that comes from within. In fact, we had been to a few parties here where the hosts themselves showed up an hour late. Because they “assumed” everyone would be late anyway!

Lately, this bad habit seems to have caught up even with the Indian celebrities visiting US. We attended a music concert by Devi Sri Prasad today here in Milpitas. He is a famous music director of Telugu movies back in India – made a lot of name for himself with catchy compositions over past couple of years. The show was supposed to start at 7:30pm, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen until 8:45pm. The organizers of the show wouldn’t even bother to tell the audience when it was going to start. They were showing a video clip of Devi Sri Prasad with the punch line, “He is the Man!!”. And we were sitting there, wondering, “Where is the Man!!?”.

When the show finally started, it was a big relief. The songs, the music, and the singers were great and it was nice entertainment. I only wish the “Man” had a little more respect for other people’s time!