The Minister and his faulty HMT watch

This was an incident that was narrated to me by a friend at HMT watches. Quite a few years back HMT watches had a showroom at the parliament street. Those days HMT had it’s showrooms at two places in Delhi - One at the Parliament street and another one at Khan market. But those were in the golden days of HMT watches and now we have only one showroom which is situated in the Jhandewalan extension in New Delhi.

This showroom at parliament street was frequented by aam Indian Janata (normal public), government officials and the politicians alike. One day the store got a call from one of the minister’s who wanted to buy a watch. He informed that his personal assistant or PA as they are popularly known as will come to pick it up on his behalf. The watch was kept ready and the same was bought by the PA on the minister’s behalf .He left in a hurry to take care of his work at the office and to deliver the watch back to his minister. Everybody thought that the transaction was over but the showroom saw the PA visiting them again the day after the watch was purchased. He claimed that the watch was faulty and wanted it to be replaced immediately. HMT issues a guarantee card with each watch purchased by its customers promising the performance of its product. It also promises that if the watch is found faulty the same would be repaired or replaced. The minister’s PA had the guarantee card and since the watch was a day old the store gave him a new watch.

So the PA left the showroom only to return back in a couple of days with the same issue and the watch was again replaced. Another two days passed and this time the minister himself graced the showroom with his esteemed presence. He was fuming with anger. A question was raised immediately by the esteemed minister on the quality of watches manufactured by the company and he shared his worry that if this was the quality of watches sold to the ministers what would be the quality of watches sold to the common Indian citizen.

The HMT staff was quite amused themselves but then kept quite as it was their product that was at fault. One of the HMT staff members from the store asked the minister politely to explain clearly what exactly was the problem he was facing with his watch. The minister fumed “problem…you are asking me what is the problem…the damn thing can’t even work for more than a couple of days. I got the watch on Monday and it stopped on Tuesday night again I got the watch and again it stopped”

The real issue behind the problem then dawned upon the staff members. They took the watch from the minister winded it and the watch started ticking again. The staff then explained to both the minister and his PA how the watch functions and how to keep it running. The minister and the PA left the showroom in a better mood not to return again much to the relief of the HMT staff members.