Late Coming

Tara Chand (l) picks a laddoo Navin Bhai treats us to. His son
is moving to Australia 

In his quiet and unobtrusive manner, Tara Chand Seth raised a pertinent issue this morning: “People are coming late these days,” he observed. “This is not right. I do not understand why they cannot come in time to exercise. It is for their own good.”
Punctuality has never been a strong point for Big Laaf members. But to be late en masse is the pits. For instance, we were just three to start the exercises today. Later of course, the number ballooned to 25-odd -- an overwhelming majority being the late lateefs.
The situation was not much different yesterday and the day before… and the day before. “I myself have started coming late,” the 89-year-old Tara Chand admitted. “At my age, I cannot come before time and take a few rounds of the Garden as I used to in the past. In this cold weather, I need to be careful about my health.”
The unfortunate part is that late-coming can be pretty contagious. Two or three members turning up late (for good reason) can always be overlooked; but when this becomes a habit and others take the cue believing that they too can get away with it, things assume a serious turn. We seem to be fast reaching that point when even the counted three who were punctual today would start taking it easy.
And then we would inevitably meet the fate of the vast majority of laughter clubs – simply disintegrate.

Lt Col Angad Singh (retd):
This makes sad reading. We should not become a laughing stock in the Garden. Let us all make an effort to be punctual.