I have over 25 expensive wrist watches. A question arises, at this point of life, as to why I have accumulated so many wristwatches? What will I do with them? What is it I wanted to prove either to myself or to the world? I have also purchased many expensive wristwatches to my family, of which I shall write later. This list includes gold and diamond watches too! I was crazy about watches. When my colleagues & bosses wore expensive wristwatches, I used to stare at them so intensely that my eyes almost fell out! My craze because an incurable obsession.
During my lifetime, I may have spent considerable amounts on these wristwatches. Most importantly I have also invested priceless time too on these watches. At the airport duty-free shops, I used to spend good time at the watch showrooms, hours together! I was of the thinking that I must have on my wrist an expensive, diamond studded gold, heavy, with big dial watch. These are actually not watches, but pieces of expensive jewelry disguised as watches. I did not realize this simple fact! My heart was intoxicated with those watches. Unknown to me this madness developed!
When I passed high school, my father gifted his watch HMT Sona watch with the sole thought that I will understand the value of time. Instead, I understood the value of the watches!! It was a mechanical hand-winding watch, even today it looks beautiful. Who wants to wear an Indian HMT watch? No way! I thought wearing that watch would reduce my stature. I never understood my father’s love showered on me through that watch. When I wear that very watch today, I feel a sense of satisfaction, fulfillment and feel that I am wearing probably the best watch any watch company can ever produce in the world!
Like a damn fool, I used to show off my expensive watches to my father! I used to say “Do you know what is the cost of this watch?” or many similar statements which are absolutely rubbish. Whenever I think of what I said, I cannot but help but to conclude that I was an idiot.
The then chief minister of Tamil Nadu and a noted film personality, impressed with my father’s police work and his distinguished service to the nation, honored him with a wristwatch in 1980s, saying “Reddy Gaaru! Allow me to place a candle before the sun”. The watch was HMT Quartz with day and date. It has golden dial. Very beautiful and respectable-looking watch. As I write this piece I am wearing that beautiful watch! I was a fool not to have understood the value of that watch.
TISSOT, SEIKO, ROLEX and scores of other expensive wrist watches are heavy on the wrist. On an average any watch will weigh around 200 grams! On the other hand, either HMT Sona or HMT Quartz watches are so lite that you hardly feel you are wearing one. TISSOT etc. will enhance themselves on your body; whereas a watch like HMT Sona will aid to enhance your personality. I wish and pray that no one should fall prey to writ watch vanity. Being very selfish, which I am, I hope that my children will wear their grandfather’s watches, through me. Through them they shall continue to have the eternal blessings of all us. A wristwatch can mean either of the two things:
- It is a reminder of the time well spent in life; or
- It remains as a mute witness to the time spent irresponsibility.
And it will not be out of place to say that I had spent my time as described in (2) above.
Kindly bear in mind that a wristwatch does not represent time. It is not time at all. It is a watch… it only watches how you are using time. A wrist watch at most be considered as the human representation of the evidence of the existence of time. A wristwatch is just a shape we have assigned to time. And I want to get away from these evidences.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
