GHADI BABU!

I just needed to get the strap of a watch adjusted, so I visited a watch repair shop in Connaught Place recently. This was an air conditioned place with absolutely beautiful wall clocks from all the well known brands of clocks and watches from all over the world. A Piaget, an Omega, a Rado, and so many others adorned the walls. Each clock was more beautiful and unique than the other.

The people at the reception were young persons, who attended to me. The person who took my watch in, was an elderly gentleman. While waiting for my work to be done, I looked around the place and noticed that most of the people repairing or servicing the watches were elderly people. 

SHOP IN PAVITRA PAPI

My mind took me back to a very old movie that I had seen, "Pavitra Papi". Balraj Sahni had played the role of a watch repairer. His shop was filled with clocks in a tiny space, with a counter. I do remember so many such shops in all the cities that I lived in. They all looked alike.

I also remembered "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam" where there was a "ghadi babu" whose job was to keep winding all the clocks in the household.

Who can forget the Salarjung Museum in Hyderabad and its musical clock where everyone gathers every hour to watch the clock perform?

THE CLOCK AT BERNE, SWITZERLAND

Other memorable clocks are in Prague, Berne,The Big Ben and many more historical, magnificent clocks in other cities of Europe, where people gather around the clock every hour to see the performance of the clock. 

THE CLOCK IN PRAGUE

Coming back to my story, I remember long- long ago, I was in the tenth class and most of my classmates did not possess a watch. In those days everyone did not wear a watch. It was considered an expensive item and everyone trusted the clock on the wall. My first watch was a "Camy" handed down to me by my mother. It had a square dial and it was my most precious possession. It was given to me so that I could prepare for my exams, timing myself. After that I did get a new watch but I always had only one watch at a time. I would take very good care of my watch, as did everyone else in those days. My watch was always the winding variety and I always wound it up at exactly the same hour every day. The first scratch on the dial had brought tears to my eyes and had spoilt my entire day.

My father owned an Omega and I was very careful whenever I had to fetch it for him.

It was my dream to own an Omega. For me it was the ultimate sign of having “arrived”.

Long ago in 1973, when I was in England, I worked for about six months there and with my earnings bought a Pye TV and an Omega watch for my husband. It was a beautiful watch with a two colored dial. Rishi Kapoor used to wear the same model of Omega then.

TRILOKI'S OMEGA OF 1973.

Many years passed, I acquired more watches one after the other. They were never too expensive. I always thought that a watch was for utility and needed to tell me the time. I did however buy a watch with different cases and colored straps and would match the strap with the dress that I wore. Then it was a fashion statement. I never thought of a watch as a status symbol. More years passed and when I completed 25 years in the Bank, as a Silver Jubilee gift from the Bank, I bought a black dial delicate looking Titan watch. That was the first time I had two watches at a time. Then a Seiko, a Citizen, a Regency and yet another Seiko, came my way. By now my thinking that a watch was just for telling the time had  changed.

One day while visiting my daughter in London, I noticed that a shop on Oxford Street was closing down and had a total "closing down sale" going on. My eyes opened wide when I saw a few Omega watches too waiting to be sold. I quickly called my husband in India, then called my daughter at work, got approval from both of them and ventured into the shop to buy my first prized possession...an Omega watch! My childhood desire of owning an Omega which had been lying dormant for donkey's years, suddenly got fulfilled!

MY PRIZED POSSESSION

Now I wear it everyday of my life. I have many other watches which I get regularly serviced, but my everyday companion is my Omega.

Well to get back to the watch repair shop! In my memory a watch repair shop was quite a non descript shop, with a show case filled with numerous watches waiting to be repaired by its ageing owner and a shop assistant who always looked eager to learn his job, sorry, craft. This swanky air conditioned shop with the most desirable beautiful wall clocks only had one common factor with those shops of my memory. It was the oldish looking gentlemen repairing the watches.

In this grand shop, I  missed the stately grand father clocks which would go tick-tock, tick-tock in a very soothing way. The pendulum would swing mesmerising me to some extent , and then suddenly the gong would strike the half hour, and break my reverie.

This shop took me down memory lane on a different journey! I loved re-visiting this closed lane!