Former Prime Minister Nepal arrived on time to see hardly half a dozen participants present. Members of the organizing chapter Narayani zonal liaison committee and other participants turned up much later. There was a small crowd and the emcee had already started inviting guests to the dais. One after another, he invited more than two dozen individuals to the podium.[break]
Nepal didn´t seem happy with the state of affairs. Traditionally, the chief guest is the penultimate speaker during such functions and it would have taken him hours before his turn came. He told the organizers that he would address the gathering right after the welcome speech.
CPN-UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, having arrived first, waits for fellow leaders at the empty hall of International Convention Center (ICC) in New Baneshwor, during the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord in November, 2006. (Photo courtesy: Phalano.com)
As he started addressing the gathering, Nepal suggested the organizers not to waste hours in meaningless formalities.
Nepal believes in strict punctuality and time management. He spent around ten minutes of his speech on the issue. He was miffed as it was the second function he had to wait endlessly for his turn on Saturday alone.
On Saturday morning, Nepal had attended a function organized by UML party committee in Lalitpur. “When I reached the venue at the given time, even the organizers had not turned up,” said Nepal at Dillibazaar gathering.
“I myself took the initiative to start the program, sat as the chief guest and delivered my speech even as most of the chairs were empty and left the program to arrive here on time,” he said.
He said that it was very wrong practice in Nepali society that key personalities like president, prime minister, ministers and party chiefs were made to sit throughout the functions. “It happens only in our society,” he said.
He shared some lessons he learnt during his visit to various countries. He said a few years ago in Japan he attended a function in which the Japanese Prime Minister was one of the guests. “He arrived, delivered a speech and left,” said Nepal.
He said he had a similar experience in India where he shared the podium with Indian President [finance minister at the time] Pranab Mukherjee during a function. “He joined the program in the third session, gave his speech and left,” said Nepal.
He said it was high time that Nepalis realized the importance of time. He said one should directly get into scheduled business rather than waste time in redundant formalities. “Even films have been shortened from three-hour format to two-hour or one-hour. Short fictions have become popular than lengthy stories. We need to understand the changing tide of time,” he said to the party rank and file.
Nepal was a stickler for punctuality even when he was the prime minister.
During his tenure as the prime minister, the heads of the parliamentary committees used to issue strict instructions to their members when Nepal was invited to the meetings.
Then chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and international relations Padam Lal Bishwakarma had a hard time during a meeting when Nepal was invited. Nepal always reached for the parliamentary meetings five minutes before the given time.
Bishwakarma would scramble for presence of more members so as to manage the minimum quorum for the meeting to start as soon as possible.
A majority of UML cadres are familiar with his campaign for punctuality and strict time management. “He always repeats the wordings “dot time”. Almost every time I meet him, I have heard him saying that we should maintain punctuality,” a cadre who seemed to be familiar with the leader was whispering to another party member when Nepal was addressing the Dillibazar gathering.
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