All things mechanical, the polite ticking of the escapement mechanism of my HMT Sunil

 

I spend a lot of my time pursuing very varied and abstract interests. Took up cigar smoking a couple of years ago, and sourcing good cigars has become a fulfilling passtime. Then I went the audiophile way with a pair of IEM's and a DAC and an apple music subscription for lossless streaming music. All in the name of doing things right, and doing the right things. At least those things that brought me pleasure.

This year I started obsessing over one particular mechanical hand-winding wrist watch manufactured nearly 3 decades earlier by HMT, a now defunct state-owned watch maker. The mere realisation that there was such a device named after my dearly departed friend and brother Sunil had me dreaming of getting my hands on it. The search began through several instagram handles, and subreddit's until I found good ole facebook to have a post with this watch by a Mr Das based in Kolkata. I wasted no time and reached out to the gentleman, who was kind enough to video call with me to display the watch, its functions and fit-for-purpose nature. He agreed to part with it for a meager sum and shipping costs which I readily transferred. The watch was delivered 4 days later and I was beaming all day in the office eager for the day to end and for me to get back home to Sunil. I remember unpacking the box and ripping apart all the tape to get the watch out. 

As soon as I picked up the watch from the box, it was immediately apparent that the metal bracelet was several sizes too small for my wrist and not properly attached to the spring bar hole on one end. I carefully took the bracelet off, and proceeded to wind for the first time my HMT Sunil. 36 clockwise turns later the crown showed resistance and I knew the main spring was fully wound and would now gradually unwind to power the movement. The rhythmic ticking of the escapement mechanism was a sound that brought me untold joy! It was now time to observe the watch for 24 hours until the next morning at 8:30 am when it would be time for another winding and accuracy check. Come the next morning I was pleased to note there was no loss in accuracy and the watch showed 8:30 am as I leaned back to wind it once again revelling in the magnificent mechanical design in my hands!

I then set about trawling reddit for a Nato strap in the 16mm dimension. After falling through several rabbit holes I finally found khisa.in an Indian leather goods maker who made 16mm nato straps. I immediately ordered this excellent strap and in 2 days it was delivered. To my annoyance, at first it seemed to be too thick to fit the gap between the case and the spring bar hole and the spring bar would keep popping out instead of staying firmly in place. Cursing my misfortune, I wrote to khisa.in explaining how much I loved the strap and how sad I was that it just wouldnt fit. I sent this email at 11 am on Sunday morning. At 12 pm Mr. Sudip the proprietor of Khisa.in called me on the phone and inquired about the problem I was facing. As I did my best to explain what was happening, he immediately understood he is speaking with an amateur hobbyist with little to no idea of what he is doing, and immediately offered to come home at 5:30 pm and check it out himself! I was floored at this response from Sudip and couldnt believe how my luck had turned! That evening, a couple of friends also came over as meeting Sudip (who is a watch afficionado and connoisseur himself with upwards of 2000 watches in his collection) was too enticing to pass up on.

So the clock strikes 5:30 then 5:45 then finally Sudip walks into my place, a pleasant middle aged gentleman wearing a Seiko 5 automatic, true to form. He meets us and takes his place at my work table where the watch is laid out on a small microfiber cloth alongside his khisa.in strap and the included spring bar removal tool and two spring bars which he insists on sending along with his straps to encourage customers to install their straps themselves, and forming a better bond with their watches. He repeats, he is not a trader, he is a hobbyist and is constantly fighting the extinction of the species of vintage mechanical watch collectors. So he takes a good long look at my HMT, fits one spring bar, and while fitting the second one observes the obstruction in the hole in the case. He asks me to take it to a proper watchmaker, there are two near the house, to clear the obstruction and maybe also service the watch if required. I immediately agree and we spend the next 20 minute talking about watches, my father walks over with his Actus Seiko, a gift from my uncle for dad's wedding 50 years ago! And we swap stories about our hunts for watches and he gives us an insight into his world where he is dismayed with the number of fake and painted vintage watches in the market but is simultaneously happy that guys like me are getting interested in these mechanical wonders and getting into the hobby.

That was how my Sunday evening was spent! In the company of an excellent and distinguished gentleman, with the stories about great watches, great hunts for watches and great memories. These are the strange and abstract occasions which create great memories. For now, I will leave you with a few pictures of my HMT Sunil and the HMT Janata I just bought from Mr. Das.

HMT Sunil

Khisa strap:

HMT Janata

Motorcycle driving license test

 Admittedly, this incident happened nearly 2 decades ago. Why do I recollect it today, and more importantly why does it feature here after so many years of oblivion? I don't really know, some weird neural synapses fired and they caused a memory recall of their own accord. Promise, I did not cause this to happen.

Anyway, onto the meat and potatoes then.

Sometime after my 17th birthday I had applied for and received a learners license for motorcycles. This was a paper booklet with my photograph on the first page and a bunch of empty pages after that. This is all before the age of card licenses, yes I am that old, no I am not obsolete. I continued using the learners permit for nearly 2 years, renewing it every 6 months, simply delaying the pukka license test because I was still convincing the family to allow me to ride a motorcycle. That, however is a different story for a different post, it took all of 1 year, 9 months and 22 days for me to plead, beg, coerce and bulldoze the resistance at home until I got the motorcycle, a glorious Yamaha RX-100. Unfortunately I had to sell this in a few months as I quickly realised I really really wanted a Royal Enfield Bullet Std. 350. And so, I acquired a second hand bullet around my 20th birthday. Not really knowing how to ride one, I hung around a bullet mechanic, learning the upkeep, maintenance and lingo for a few months. Raju bhai was an indulgent sorta fellow who didnt skimp on details and passed on much of his tribal knowledge to me that year. 

Then one evening Raju bhai asked me for a favour. A customer's bike needed to be picked up from near my house and brought to the garage, but he didnt have the time to spare. Not knowing I only had theoretical knowledge on riding a bullet, he asked me to go and get it. The overconfidence only granted by youth was fortunately available to me in excessive quantities. And so, I went to pickup the customer's Bullet. I reached the building and his watchman handed me the keys to the bike. Now I had watched Raju bhai kickstart the bullet a few hundred times, and even helped him do that often, so I knew there was a separate key for the ignition and a second for the fuel cock. After turning them both on, I knew the ammeter needle had to be brought to deadcenter using a choke + slow kick. Then depending on how the stars were aligned and how merciful the Gods of Internal combustion were on you, a swifter kick should ideally bring the engine to life with the trademark dug dug dug cadence of the standard 350.

Fortunately, the bike turned over after a few iterations of the above and I swung a leg over it and took the position. Please note, back then helmets were not mandatory, and I was wearing shorts and sandals. Something my older self would look back on with several facepalms. So I put the bullet in gear with the toe of my right foot pushing the gear lever up engaging first, let the clutch out slowly while giving some throttle, and miracle of miracles the momentum started building without the bike stalling on me! My nights of simulated motorcycle riding seemed to have borne fruit! As I rode the 5.5 kilometers between that building to Raju bhais garage, every turn, every stop at a redlight and every open stretch of road added to my confidence and in about 14 minutes I had mastered the art of riding a Bullet standard 350.

Cut to the day of my pukka license test. This happens in thane at the old RTO which has a small ground where the officer conducts the test. He usually sits at a table in one end of the field to have maximum visibility on the figure 8 drawn in chalk which has to be ridden by the aspirants. My test was scheduled for 9:30 am. I got a little late and pulled into the RTO field at 9:45 am and parked my Bullet adjacent to the RTO officer's table while he watched me coast to a stop and put the bike on its center stand. As I casually sauntered to his desk with my learners permit and form to get in line for the test, he stopped me with an upraised palm. His paan (betel leaf) filled mouth formed a question, "kuthun aala bike gheun", this translates to "from where did you ride here on the bike". I told him my home address which is a bit more than 6 kilometers away from the RTO. His instant response was, "zhala tujha test, form de mi pass karto tula", translated to "your test is done, give me your form, I am passing you". And with that I took the stamped form and walked over to the window to get my pukka license! Was this carelessness on the part of the RTO officer? I believe not. As riding a Royal Enfield Standard Bullet 350 at the age of 20, as casually and nonchalantly as I had did imply a certain amount of skill and expertise. Had the officer asked me to ride the figure 8, I would have done that easily too. This isn't a boast, it's just the truth. I rode that bullet for 4.5 lakh kilometers across India over the next 9 years until I moved on to other motorcycles. But the Bullet is still the origin of my love for all things on 2 wheels!

9 things revealed

 Sharing 9 things about myself:

1. I like black coffee. No adulteration. Copious quantities of it.

2. I am bad at cooking, but great at being a food critic.

3. I wake up before 6 am every morning. Not voluntarily, blame the sleep cycle.

4. I dislike speaking with people, unless I really really like them.

5. I love driving/riding my car/bikes.

6. I hate socks

7. I dont have any photographs of the most memorable moments of my life.

8. I remember other peoples birthdays (with an assist from Google Calendar)

9. I used to whistle well, dont anymore.

Hair in the ear ( auricular hypertrichosis )

 Yes, I suffer from this absolutely normal physiological condition where one or several hairs sprout from ones ears. In my specific case, there is exactly one hair which sprouts from the top of my right ear lobe and stand out like the proverbial overachieving student in class found perennially with a raised hand and fore finger even before the teacher completes her question.

I do not really care about this from any aesthetic point of view. But it irks me at times, and I just yank it out whenever I remember to, about once every two months. I have no other hair from my ears, but as COVID has caused all of us to be very touchy feely with our ears what with having to repeatedly assault them with earphones for all those work Teams/slack/meet calls, the hair no longer goes under the radar and is evicted with extreme prejudice regularly.

How I like my eggs

 Yeah, start with taking the non-stick pan from the cabinet.

Put it on the stove, then spend 2 minutes lighting, then relighting the stove (its an old one and has its own startup routine)

Bring those 4 eggs from the refridgerator door. Crack them into a ceramic bowl and grab that fork to whisk them into submission. Then curse silently at yourself to go grab two slices of cheese from the fridge, trudging there and back mournfully, lamenting the lack of process optimization you have just practised.

Grab the olive oil and butter and put a bit of each into the pan. Let it warm up, the oil becomes more viscous and you give the pan a whirl to coat every millimetre of it so the eggs dont stick.

You then get into the endless debate with yourself, should I add the salt and pepper to the eggs in the bowl before whisking? or should I dump them into the pan then sprinkle them on top. You spend 10 seconds debating then your hunger makes the decision for you and you dump the eggs into the pan and sprinkly salt and pepper on top when you see a little white(they are cooking).

Now you do what every street eggs vendor in Bombay does and take 4 slices of bread from the packet, dunk each on either side in the still runny eggs and place them on top of the eggs. Then you take the cheese out of the packets and keep them ready. Soon as you dont see any more runny yellow bits, you take the big wooden ladle and flip the eggs to now be bread side down on the pan. Letting the bread slices go golden brown while you place the two slices of cheese on each bread slice, you grab the tomato ketchup and splotch a dollop on each slice. Now proceeding to folding the bread slices one over the other you come away with the Bombay egg sandwich which now you slide onto a big plate, grab a knife to separate first the full bread slices, then halve them as well. Splotch a few more blobs of ketchup on the plate and get ready to carry this heavenly breakfast to your table in front of the Television. 

How I deal with losing important people

 Yes, this is my coping mechanism for dealing with the gut wrenching, unlimitedly tragic feelings that follow the loss of someone very important in my life.

For some strange reason, they aren't dead for me, rather they have gone on a long train journey and I am seeing them off at the railway station after driving them there and loading their bags.

They are waving to me as the train rolls out of the station, and I walk beside the train for as long as I can waving back and reminding them to call when they reach.

As the train finally becomes just a speck in the horizon, I turn back to my car, get in, a little sadder and a lot lonelier than a few minutes ago. Driving back home alone is very brutal, as I keep running through memories of happier times with them in the past.

I think this probably implies I am living in denial and not confronting my loss. But screw it, I am able to keep going and that's all that matters. 

Another thing that matters is, I hope when it comes time for me to take that final one-way train journey into the twilight, there is someone who cares enough to come drop me to the station and wave goodbye one last time.

Facts- whether you like them or not

The morning shower tires you out more than it refreshes you

Putting on good work clothes isnt as much fun as it used to be

You have enough watches, but never enough time

When you sneeze, theres rarely anyone about to whisper a 'Bless you'

Men used to sweat and swear, they barely whimper anymore

The traffic is as bad as it used to be, only now you realise you are the traffic too

The mornings still start early, but the nights never used to end this soon  

The drive to work is long, but sometimes not long enough to be fun

The work is endless, hectic and tough, but not as much fun as you want it to be

The coffee is warm enough, but never strong enough

The dinner is fulfilling enough for the body, but rarely enough to satiate the soul

The memories of your friend are incredibly detailed, but still not as good as the real thing.

Song lyrics are still remembered, but rarely sung aloud anymore

The future is as bright as it used to be, but you need to wear sunglasses now.