Chaudhry Sahib was an extremely punctual person. He was ever mindful of that in his daily routine and urged others to do the same. In fact, he trained them practically.
Once, he started a study circle in London that was attended by young students. The time for the class was fixed and he made it clear to them that the time will be adhered to. He used to come a few minutes before the class and shut the door at the fixed time.
Late-comers were not allowed in. Consequently, all the students became punctual in a couple of days.
When Chaudhry Sahib was appointed the President of the General Assembly, he maintained his tradition of starting the proceedings on time.
Thus, he gave a practical lesson of punctuality to the members of the assembly who were usually casual about time keeping.
In the context of punctuality, an interesting incident comes to my mind. A friend narrated to me that once students or Khuddam in Karachi requested Chaudhry Sahib to speak on the topic of “Qualities of a Good Speaker.” He mentioned many qualities in detail. The last thing he mentioned was that a good speaker must be well-aware of the end of the time allocated for his speech.
Having said that, he sat down on the chair. The audience noticed the allocated time for his speech had just ended.
During his stay in London, it was his routine to offer his prayers in the Mosque. We had arranged between the two of us that I would press the doorbell of his flat when going to the mosque for Prayers just to remind him during his engagements.
After performing his wudhu and offering the sunnah or nawafil, he would make it to the Fazl Mosque usually on time; or in fact a few minutes earlier.
He used to sit on a chair at the right end of the first row and occupied himself with remembrance of Allah till the start of the congregational prayer. If the number of worshippers was small, he would move his chair to the end of the row and joined the Prayer.
Sometimes, Chaudhry Sahib was slightly late, and we used to wait for him before starting the Prayer. One day, a close friend of Chaudhry Sahib asked him: “Chaudhry Sahib! You are very punctual and are referred to as a model of punctuality. How come, you are late for Prayer sometimes?” Chaudhry Sahib was not offended, rather with his typical smile, he replied: “Allah does forgive but men do not.”
A hallmark of his character was that he never wore a wrist watch. When asked, his response was, “One has to perform ablution before each of the daily prayers. The inconvenience of taking off and putting it back again five times a day is too much and wastes a lot of time.” Instead, he had a chained pocket watch that he carried in his waist coat and pulled the chain to remind him of the time in his meticulous time-keeping habit.