HMT Watches - Yes they are still ticking

Whenever I tell people that i collect HMT watches their first reaction is "But i thought the company is already closed". In fact that's what i thought as well. The name HMT was always there in my subconscious mind. Maybe it was because as a child i remember seeing an HMT watch on my grandfathers wrist or maybe i remember reading in books about characters reaching late and then giving an excuse that they forgot to wind their watches and were thus late.Maybe because i am a typical Indian who believes everything from the good old days is good.But then everything changed one night and HMT watches gained my consciousness. 

To be honest i never thought much about watches. To me a watch was a time keeping instrument and that was it. Though glossy advertisements of Rolex, Tag Heuer, etc always caught my attention. My work requires me to travel regularly. HMT Corporate office in Bangalore (aka HMT Bhawan ) is en route to the Bangalore International Airport. During my return from airport late one night HMT Bhawan lingered on my memory and after reaching home I started Googling about HMT. That night I spent quite a few hours on the web learning about HMT watches and when I saw all those pictures at one the watch forums i immediately fell in love with the simple and elegant Janata,Pilot and Sona. Next day was a Saturday and I made calls to HMT showrooms making inquiries about the Pilot watch . Luckily HMT Bhawan outlet had a black Pilot watch. I requested the person who received my call to keep the watch reserved for me while I made a rush to the showroom. But then by the time I reached the watch got billed to someone else. I was quite disappointed as I had driven quite a distance to get the watch. A senior person at the showroom who had actually got the watch billed to his son’s friend immediately took my number and promised to get the black pilot for me by next week from Tumkur outlet. While at the showroom I observed other watches and the all Hindi Janata caught my fancy. I immediately fell in love with it and since that day it has been on my wrist every day. True to his word I got a call from the gentleman from HMT and i got the Pilot on the next weekend. 

Since that fateful night these simple and elegant watches have become my companions of good and bad times.