As a watch enthusiast, I would often hear from fellow
enthusiasts about the watches they got from their father. Here is the story of
my father’s gift to me and the happiest day of my life.
My father is my hero and his impact on my life is immense,
my love for watches germinated from the time I saw my father’s wrist watch. My
father’s daily beater was a Ricoh Japan, automatic movement watch. It had an
emeraldish greenish-blue dial, a day-date calendar and was nothing less than a
wonder to me. He would put it next to his pillow at night and I would often look
at the lumed dots glowing softly in the night and wondered when I would get one
for myself. In the 90s his Ricoh watch ended up in his cupboard and was
replaced by a Timex watch, which had a quartz movement. This Timex watch stayed
on his wrist ever since. He often received other and more expensive watches but
the Timex watch ruled his wrist.
My father knew of my obsession with watches and HMT watches in
particular and we would often talk about them. Last year when I had visited
him, he gave me his Ricoh watch and the child in me got the most cherished object.
A couple of years back, I told him that I bought for him an HMT “Provash”
automatic, which is quite similar to his first name “Pravesh”, he gave me his
evergreen answer “Please don’t get me a watch, I don’t need another watch”. I
respected his decision and lost all hopes of seeing another watch on his wrist
and thought the Timex will be his daily beater forever.
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| My Father's Ricoh Japan watch on my wrist today |
However, god wanted to fulfil yet another dream of mine. I
got a call from my father a few days back and he told me he wants my advice on a
wrist watch. He informed me that his Timex watch has stopped working and is
with the service center and he has not been wearing any watches for some time.
My heart was filled with joy when he said that he wanted to wear an HMT watch
from now on. He said that it’s our good old Indian brand and with me always
advocating the use of HMT watches he wanted to wear one. As always, his
requirements were clear – a gold plated quartz watch with day-date function and
dial shape other than round (his timex watch had a round dial and he wanted to
try something new). He also said that he did not want many options as it might
confuse him and that the day calendar should be in Hindi. After some thought
and search, I zeroed down on Sangam Premium MGGG 06 PRE WD. I shared a few
pictures with him and he liked it instantly. The only problem was that the day
calendar was in English and Japanese while he wanted it to be in Hindi and
English. However, when I told the seller about it, he offered to change the Japanese
calendar to Hindi and with the change incorporated; watch was shipped.I knew
that my father would want to wear the watch on the first day of Navratri and luckily
the watch reached him a day earlier. Today, he wore the watch after the pariva
pooja of first day of Navratri and sent me a wrist shot. Words fail the
expression of my happiness. Today, without even a shadow of doubt, is the
happiest day of my life as a son, who also happens to be a watch collector....an
HMT watch collector.
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| My Father's wrist shot with his HMT Sangam Premium watch |
