Lessons from my old wristwatch

When I entered college, in 1975, my father gave me two things--a bicycle and a wristwatch. One liberated me from the confines of my home and the other helped me in mastering the time.

The Atlas bicycle was second-hand but in good condition. It didn’t give me wings but certainly gave wheels to my feet and that’s all I needed to map the spaces I wanted to map at that stage of my life.

The bicycle proved a trusted companion and a fellow traveller through a crucial stretch of my life’s journey. Then, when I left my home to pursue a career, I passed the bike to my younger brother and lost touch with it.

The wristwatch that my father gave me was brand-new hand-winding stainless steel, an HMT Avinash, purchased from the CSD canteen at the price of one hundred and sixty-five rupees. The figure is stuck in memory because the amount was significant, considering that my father’s salary was then in three figures.

I am indebted to my watch for teaching me many lif -lessons. To begin with, it taught me the difference it makes if one arrives anywhere five minutes early rather than five minutes late. It also gave me a perspective that first and foremost, life is merely a number – of seconds, hours, days and years. It made me so acutely conscious of each passing moment that whenever someone asked me what time it was I would reply to the precise second, like, “It’s …O’clock,…minutes and….seconds.”

My watch also gave me the profound understanding that time and life move only in one direction i.e., forward and that ‘constant’ is only a theoretical construct. It also taught me that to complete the journey in time, one must neither hurry nor tarry. One must move at a steady pace like the hands of a watch.

HMT was another name for durability. My watch, therefore, stood by me for many years. There was never any need nor inclination to replace it. However, as newer and fancier models came my way as gifts, my first watch lost relevance and I forgot where it was.

Then, the other day, when rummaging in an old trunk for something, I found my old wristwatch neatly packed away, most certainly by my wife. Just to see if it was still working, I wound it up. To my utter surprise and delight the seconds hand started moving without any problem. And the watch came alive as from a long hibernation. That’s when it taught me the most important lesson: one can always count on an old friend.