Watching the times change

To say that Nikhil Sandhu is enthusiastic about his watch collection would be putting it mildly. Reeling of dates, names and figures about his exotic collection, Nikhil’s passion for collecting these time keepers is evident.

“Contrary to many watch collectors, I was not interested in this hobby right from my childhood,” he says. “It sort of grew on me only in my mid-20s, when I started working. Maybe it also had something to do with the fact that I was born in a time where watches were an essential part of daily wear,” he adds.

Talking about what got him hooked to this activity, Nikhil shares a story.

“I was posted in Delhi for a few years . Once at a friend’s place (who, incidentally, also happens to be a watch enthusiast), I happened to see his father wearing an old HMT. He used to work in the Indian Air Force so he was wearing an ‘HMT Pilot’, a watch that was a preferred choice of the armed forces. I was fascinated by the beautiful looking contraption and went around looking to buy one. The stores I visited had very limited options mainly because HMT did not replenish their stocks very often. I bought just one.”

But the spark of fancy had been lit and after coming to Bengaluru, Nikhil took the internet to find out more about these watches and where to get them. “I was surprised to find that the online market for such watches was pretty big,” he says. “There were, and still are, a lot of enthusiasts. The market for used watches is also very big,” he says.

Nikhil’s prized possessions include a number of ‘HMTs’ and ‘Seikos’. “The Seikos are the ones that really caught my fancy. They are known for their ‘Chronograph’, ‘Diver’ and ‘Dress’ watches.”

Thus it is no surprise that his collection includes 8 Seikos (‘Sumo’, ‘Apple’, ‘Actus’, ‘Nautilas/Ranger’, ‘Diver 70 M’, ‘Scuba Diver’, ‘Turtle’ and ‘Jumbo’), 9 HMTs (‘NASS 17’, ‘Track’, ‘Avinash’, ‘Kohinoor’, ‘Jhalak’, ‘Sona’, ‘Pilot’ and two ‘Janatas’) as well as one ‘Citizen’, three Deep Blue diver watches, one German Pilot watch and a couple of old ‘Titans’.

He says that one needs to have a bit of luck on their side to find the kind of watches one wishes for.

“There was a guy who gave me his father’s old ‘Seiko Pogue Chronograph’ with a beautiful blue and red dial (Pepsi Bezel), when I told him I was looking for something like that. It was an early model and even though he had a lot of memories attached to it, he didn’t use it much and didn’t want it to gather dust. I was really lucky that day.”

“Another time, I was on my way back from Pondicherry and flying out of Chennai. Since I had a bit of time, I decided to visit some old HMT stores because I had heard that the collection there was better. Once I went inside, I was blown away and ended up picking out nine of them. But they were not very expensive. An ‘HMT Automatic’ that cost around Rs 4000 was the most expensive one. The others were all mechanical and required hand winding,” he reminisces.

Nikhil says that one of the best parts about buying these watches is sending them for servicing.

Huh? He laughs and explains, “While th HMTs are in more or less good condition, I have to send the Seikos for servicing once in a while. The guys who sit in these watch repair shops have usually been around for a long time and their eyes light up with joy when they see these vintage watches. They ask a lot of questions about where I got it from and some even advised me against getting these watches serviced if I was not planning to wear them.”

So does he wear them? “Of course I do. If I step out of my house in the morning, I need to wear a watch or I feel weird. I feel as if something is missing. But my wife is quite the opposite. I gifted her a limited edition ‘Seiko JDM’ (watches not available for export outside Japan) and she has worn it only twice or thrice for fear of scratching it somewhere,” Nikhil laughs.