Indians have a famously flexible relationship with punctuality.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes” rarely means ten minutes — it’s closer to twenty or forty-five, depending on the speaker’s optimism and the traffic’s mood.
“Coming soon” is essentially meaningless, a phrase that should be filed alongside “the cheque is in the mail.”
A dinner invitation for 8 p.m. means guests will start arriving at 9 p.m. and dinner might be served at 10.
There’s no point fighting this. It isn’t disrespect; it’s accepted norm.
Professional settings (hotels, flights, tours) generally run on time. Everything else runs on IST — Indian Stretchable Time, as locals joke with the weary fondness of people who have long since given up trying to fix it.