India and the time
India is a time issue by definition. The time difference between India and Central Europe is 3.5 hours (in winter 4.5 hrs). So the time keeping was on my mind already when preparing for the trip in June 2007. I traveled with Orient Star World Time that helped me sorting out the puzzle of the local time. It did its job very well. The main hand was set to the Indian time, at 12 o’clock index I could always see the local time of Europe, at 11 o’clock there was GMT time (quite important figure as long as the system I was setting up in India was tuned to the GMT time), and 3 o’clock index always showed the Hong Kong time – the time zone of our regional support office. Therefore this smart timepiece of Japanese Orient solved all time zones confusion at once.

From Orient Star

Streets

My visit to India was limited to one small town Baroda (http://www.baroda.com). Well, that “small town” has 1’500’000 inhabitants, so for the European standards it should be considerable big city.

This is not just the time difference that makes the difference to the visitor. Everyday route from the hotel to the office was an experience of many contrasts. Just behind the gate of tidy hotel I could see extremely poor people living in shelters. A kilometer or so later there were some very good and rich looking apartments, and then simple street shops. Similar contrasts could be seen on the road. The highway lane was a mixture of bicycles, motorbikes, taxis and cars. Most of the cars were class A versions of local producer Tata. From time to time I could notice Skoda Octavia (considered there a luxury car) and some decent minivans and off-road vehicles.

From India

Timepieces
I still wondered what kind of watches Indians would wear and how the local market of the timepieces would look like. I had no much time to explore that dimension of the Indian society. In fact that was one of those busy business trips with very limited time for any personal matters. Nonetheless I did not want to miss the opportunity.
Reading various message boards I learned Indians mainly liked quartz watches.
However mechanical watches have had a long good tradition in India, too. Their local company HMT (http://hmti.com) used to dominate the market with a good choice of hand-wind and automatic models. They also managed to produce a huge garden clock installed in the public area of city I visited!

From India

Basically HMT has been producing complete units with in-house built movements. The wristwatches movements’ production started with the license acquired from Japanese Citizen. Indians signed the agreement with Citizen Watch Co. in 1960, and by the end 1962 the production plant was up and running. They started with the production of hand wound movements and later (1971) also launched automatic watches. Therefore HMT mechanics reminds so much the Citizen movements. As they said the success story of HMT watched actually ended in 1990's, the time when Indian customers discovered the advantages of quartz watches.

From HMT Rajat

Still HMT has been known and appreciated for its precise time pieces. However the design of the cases and dials seemed to stay behind untouched for so many years. The look of current HMT models gives the impression of watches from 1970s. HMT tried to maintain its market position and decided to add quartz watches to their catalogue. Still old fashioned design could not attract attention of the modern middle class customers.

From HMT Rajat

For last 15 years the sales of HMT has been weakened gradually. And currently the market leadership is the hands of their direct competitor: Titan (http://titanworld.com). Titan - most popular watch brand in India - is 100% focused on quartz and prices its watches higher than HMT. Most popular HMT watches cost 500-1000 Rupees (9-18 Euro) and Titan’s are up to 5000 Rupees (92 Euro). Still some luxury timepieces of Titan are priced above 20’000 Rupees with some models reaching even 70’000 Rupees. Titan watches are well designed, look modern and are distributed in extensive chain of Titan shops. Every month Titan announces new models to keep customers aware of Titan’s designers’ creativity.

Ignoring the market situation and Indians choice of Titan, I tried to find HMT dealer. I particularly searched for HMT Rajat following the tips of Reto from Poor Man’s Watch Forum http://www.pmwf.com/ . Reto warmly described his Rajat after the visit to India in 2003 and I trusted his opinion.

With some help of my colleagues

Seeing my odd interest in HMT the local colleagues exploited their contacts to find out who and where might be offering HMT in Baroda. After couple of days of the research they tracked down a shop in the neighborhood where HMT was usually available. I visited it just one day before my departure. Above the entrance there was a big name “Dalson” with smaller names of various watch brands.  But… the HMT logo was no more displayed anywhere in the shop. They sell Tissot, Swatch, Titan, Police and some other brands however no HMT at all. The shop manager (owner?) tried to sell me a quartz watch of the leading Indian brand Titan. As soon as he learnt I am interested in mechanical watches only, he switched to Swiss and Japanese brands. I patiently explained my point. The Swiss watches I buy in Switzerland where I live, even rare Japanese watches I import from a friendly shop in Japan, and in India I was looking for Indian mechanical watches.

From HMT Rajat

I guess my determination to get old fashioned, unpopular and relatively cheap HMT looked somehow weird to him. However he made the impression of being a good salesman who could accept odd behavior of the customer. He generously offered obtaining a HMT Rajat from the shop based in another part of the city. Next day HMT Rajat was already on his table. I visited the shop again and closed the deal. The exchange ritual included discussion about the watches; I was offered a drink (a glass of Sprite in this case) and went through the attempt of selling me ultra slim quartz Titan watch.

From HMT Rajat

Later, in the office, I had a better look at my 1000 rupees automatic wristwatch. I liked very much the size and the form of the watch. In fact it looks old fashioned. Probably the same shape since 1970s when they started production of automatic watches.

HMT Rajat 2007 vs. HMT Rajat 2003

After arriving home, I compared my newly bought Rajat to the model presented at  http://www.pmwf.com/. Seems Rajat of 2003 (serial number 630197) differs from one of 2007 (serial number 650193) in some details.

The indexes are now finished in a different way. They are slightly bigger and decorated with three cut bars. Next to each index there is a fluorescent dot, not present before. The dots play just an ornamental role as the time cannot be read in the dark (the hands do not glowing). The hands themselves are now yellow with black strips in their middle parts, while in the previous version they used to be simple silver steel. And the last modification I noticed was the bracelet, current one has slightly different style and no more HMT logo on the lock. I personally liked more the older, simpler look of the dial and the hands. Still that is just a matter of personal taste.

From HMT Rajat

Future

At home I placed HMT Rajat in the collectors’ box next to my Swiss and Japanese watches. Both Switzerland and Japan are prosperous markets for mechanical watches. Mechanical movements seemed to regain their respectful position after the quartz fever. I wonder if India will remain for ever the market of beautiful slim quartz timepieces. India reports enormous economical growth and systematic enlargement of its middle class. Would it influence the mechanical watches market? Would HMT invest into more attractive design and re-launch its timepieces? Or maybe HMT would remain the story of the past and Titan should maintain its leadership by starting production of gorgeous mechanical watches? Or maybe both local players would stay where they were and Swatch should share the market with Seiko teasing Indian customers with the models already loved in other countries?
Maybe none of the above scenarios would become real? Maybe Indian customers would keep running their own way and continue their loyalty to quartz solutions, never again giving much chance to the mechanical movements?
Whatever direction India should take, I will stay with my passion to the mechanical timepieces and next time I am in India I will definitely try to get to the HMT shop, see and maybe buy some more old fashioned Indian timepieces.

BLF

15^th June 2007

Questions? Comments? Please, send them to: bernardREMOVE_THIS_CAPS_TEXT@fruga.net