We live in an age of interdependence. In a factory hundreds of workers, labor together. They are all cogs in the big wheel. If any one cog gets late the machine cannot get going. All others have to wait till this cog, this worker arrives. It is therefore everybody’s sacred obligation to be punctual to a second.

The same may be said of a school teacher. If he arrives late even though by five minutes, the entire class of one hundred students is kept waiting. The total loss of time is 500 minutes one has only to recognize the magnitude of the loss to make punctuality a principle of conduct.

In our country we often hear the phrase Indian time. One cannot but hand down one’s head in shame that even hours have meaning for us. Here is a meeting to be addressed by a minister. Ten thousand persons have assembled from far and near. People wait and wait and the minister dose not turn up. Songs are sung and gramophone records are played to keep the audience engaged. Every now and then same one shouts from the platform that the minister ascends the dais and without even an apology starts his sermon, probably on the subject of punctuality in the west.

In medical profession, time is equal to soul. Because some persons may lose their life cause of some minutes late. Doctors and nurses must have social responsibility to keep punctuality. Because they are imagined by people as a god in their heart.

We have yet to learn the value of time. It was said of Kant, that people used to correct their watches when he went out for his morning stroll. How one wishes that we Indians could get a leaf out of that great man’s book!