It started with a Timex my grandma gifted me when I was nine.
The school I went to didn’t allow watches, so I’d come home, take it out of the case, wear it for a few hours, and put it back before the next morning. I kept the case, the warranty card, and the bill, and I still have them somewhere.
From school to college I went through a few cheap quartz watches I thought were fashionable at the time.
Seventeen years ago, with my first paycheck, I bought a Titan. I don’t wear it anymore but I haven’t been able to give it away either. After that came a Timex, an impulse buy that turned out to be a good one, with a black dial and red accents on the buttons. At the time it was my most expensive watch.
My interest in mechanical watches started through GQ. I was a regular reader and the magazine covered luxury timepieces seriously. I’d read those articles and think about what it would feel like to own one. For years that’s as far as it went.
Eventually I bought my first Swiss watch, a Tissot Couturier quartz chronograph. It only came on a steel bracelet, and for more than twelve years that’s what it stayed on. I never got comfortable with steel bracelets, which is mostly why it became my least favourite of the collection, the watch that came out for weddings and formal occasions and went straight back. Last year I finally ordered a green leather strap for it from Indian Leathercraft.
Then a Fossil, another impulse buy. Wore it daily until the strap broke. While writing this I realised I don’t actually need to replace it with the same strap. That’s probably obvious to everyone else.
In 2019 I bought my first automatic, a Zeppelin LZ129. It has a 35-hour power reserve, a cream dial and a domed crystal that makes it look more expensive than it is, on a deep brown strap that works with almost anything. I’m fond of this one.
A year later came the Tissot Seastar Powermatic 80, and I loved it the moment I saw it. The blue dial shifts shades under sunlight, like Pangong Lake. It came on a rubber strap, which I replaced with dark brown leather, and it was my daily watch for a few years.
Then the Mido Ocean Star Tribute Gradient. Mido wasn’t sold in India then, so I asked a friend visiting Dubai to pick one up. The original plan was a Hamilton Murph, but it was sold out, and the Mido was the backup.
Three years on, it’s the watch I reach for first. The 40.5mm case sits perfectly on my wrist, the leather was soft from day one, and it’s been through motorcycle rides, long weekends and ordinary Tuesdays without once feeling out of place.
The next one is already decided: the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch. Part of what draws me to it is the history. It was worn on all six crewed moon landings, and it’s been places no other watch has. The current one has a 42mm stainless steel case, a black step dial, the dot over 90 on the bezel, and the Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 3861 inside. It’ll take a few years to get there, and I’m fine with that.
