Plausible prejudice

I am no party pooper. However, when I happen to attend parties, rarely as I do, I am reminded of the dynamics of cocktail parties described by Sir Cyril Northcote Parkinson, 55 years ago in his seminal book, Parkinson's Law .

Many things have changed since then, like party goers nowadays stop conversation abruptly to tweet or cup their ears with mobile phones or manoeuvre the glass in their hand to check for a text message or an e-mail and so on. Notably, however, some others have remained the same since Parkinson's days. For instance , he observed that party goers tend to keep to the left, move inside the room avoiding the centre, creep close to the wall, reach the corner diagonally opposite to the entrance and then abruptly leave. This social foxtrot taken together with the punctuality of the invitees determines the relative importance of the attendees in the group.

Power equation

He devised an algorithm by which more important people could be spotted as if with a laser range-finder even in a party chamber with dimmed lights. The notable factor is that most, if not all, important people would have arrived late.

I brought this point up since our national proclivity for being unpunctual formed the subject of small talk recently in a party where expatriates from multinational corporations were invited. Contrary to the thesis that late-coming is an inveterate Indian habit, I would argue that keeping to time is more a derivative of the power equation among the participants in any group regardless of nationality.

As stated earlier, Parkinson had perceived that arriving late is a measure of one's higher standing. Even if the westerners, nowadays, make sweeping generalisations about the tardiness of Indians, one has observed times without number that they themselves are generous in forgiving their bosses for similar deviation in their home countries.

Self-Righteous americans

It is quite common for the head honchos in the US to keep their underlings waiting almost indefinitely after giving an appointment or scheduling a meeting. According to Valerie Nosek of ease@work, a survey of 2,700 chief executives revealed that CEOs are late to meetings 60 per cent of the time. And, it's suspected that the “late rate” percentage would be higher, except that most CEOs are “punctual for meetings with important clients.”

Isn't it, then, a bit self-righteous to demand and expect at all times stricter standards of punctuality across the board here in India when similar infraction can pass muster as acceptable code back home? Or is it a reflection of the old colonial mindset continued?

After punctuality, the next most popular topic during party chats is poor hygiene and sanitation in our cities. Here in India, at a local level going by the scenes of piling garbage in street corners, strong criticism of our habits seems warranted. However, when it comes from those living in the US one often wonders should they really be the ones saying all these.

Just consider these facts about waste in the US. Only two man-made structures can be seen from satellites in the sky, one the Great Wall of China and the other, Fresh Kills Landfill at Staten Island near New York. Americans throw away 570 diapers a second. That's 49 million diapers a day. An average American contributes 56 tonnes of garbage a year that is carted off to landfill, potentially damaging the land, air and water quality. Experts say that in the US they are running out of landfill sites at the rate of one a day.

Remember what H.L. Mencken, the acerbic critic of American politics said, “Criticism is prejudice made plausible.”

(The author is former Member, Ordnance Factories)

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