Prashant Pandey is keeping alive the memory of India's iconic HMT watches

Collector of timepieces and seeker of stories, Bengaluru's Prashant Pandey is keeping alive the memory of India's iconic HMT watches, writes Nikita Puri

Every Sunday, Prashant Pandey makes his way to the full-size steel almirah in his Bengaluru apartment. Stacked inside are boxes of all sizes and roomy pouches, some long, some deep. He then proceeds to pick out seven watches: one for every day of the coming week. It’s a routine he follows every month, but the year doesn’t have enough days for Pandey’s rotation of watches — he’s got well over 1,000. 

“Numbers don’t matter,” insists the 36-year-old human resources professional who works for an information technology company. “Each of these watches has a story to tell, and those stories matter.” The almirah is a recent addition to Pandey’s house. “My wife, Juhi, bought it specially for these watches. Earlier they were just lying about everywhere,” he says.

Though his collection includes models such as Omega and Tegra, Pandey is the brand ambassador that HMT, formerly Hindustan Machine Tools, never had. A product of the post-Independence Nehruvian era, HMT’s swadeshi-celebrating watches were once timekeepers for generations. An HMT watch often marked occasions or rites of passage. “When students got good grades, their parents would get them an HMT. When the bank where my grandfather worked wanted to reward him, it gifted him an HMT Quartz,” recalls Pandey. That, in fact, was the first HMT Pandey ever saw. But, over time, his grandfather’s watch slipped out of his mind — until he passed HMT Bhavan in Bengaluru one day. As he started surfing the web for HMT watches, he learnt that a style called HMT Pilot was considered a collector’s item. “It had a cult following, somewhat like the Yezdi or the RX 100 motorbike,” says Pandey. 

The Pilot was out of stock. But as he stood browsing the shelves at HMT Bhavan, another icon, the HMT Janta, caught his eye. This one had numerals spelt out in Devanagari script. It would become Pandey’s first HMT. “My collection was supposed to start and end with the HMT Pilot. But after Janta, there was no stopping.”

Pandey began to spend more and more time at the HMT showroom. His daughter, Shubhangi, who would often accompany him, became so comfortable in this world of watches that she would sometimes draw on the store’s stationery. “I like HMT Chirag,” says Shubhangi, now eight. “It has nice colours.” (The Chirag line is often marked by silver shimmers or ombre effects.)

Before the age of e-commerce, Pandey would pester relatives and friends to courier him the different ranges available in their cities. “People thought I was mad,” he laughs. His childhood friend, Rahul Asthana, who is based in Agra has experienced Pandey’s “junoon” (obsession) for HMT watches firsthand. “He’d keep taking me to HMT showrooms whenever I was in town.”

For years, Pandey’s phone record would show only outgoing calls to watch showrooms in other cities: Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Chennai, Puducherry, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.

Photo: Saggere Radhakrishna

Then in 2013, he formed HMT Watch Collectors — a Facebook group to share and exchange knowledge about HMT watches. Now, every weekend, Pandey is either meeting former employees of HMT — in early 2016, the Union Cabinet approved the closure of HMT Watches and offered voluntary retirement to its employees — or reading up on watches. Or else, he’s looking for watches in scrap markets. “I have no other social life,” he says, laughing.

Some time ago, in one of these markets, he found a watch lying face down in the dirt. The crystal had popped off, and the dial had accumulated mud and adhesive from a discarded can lying nearby. He bought the watch despite its battered state. It was an HMT Tareeq. For the next two days, he sat bent over his desk cleaning it. Soon after the crystal was replaced, Pandey wound it up and it ticked back to life. “This watch is a survivor. It's like an old friend who has seen a lot in the 35 years of its existence,” he says. 

Besides the online community of HMT enthusiasts he has created, he is one of the 10 to 15 people who meet at Cubbon Park every second Sunday to discuss the latest developments in the watch market. Subjects here include how and where to avoid fakes, who’s got a new watch to flaunt, and the latest trends. (Straps are like ties, he says, talking about a timeless classic. “If you have a patterned shirt, you wear a plain tie. If you have a busy dial, you wear a plain strap and vice-versa.”)

For this interview, the dining table in the Pandey household is covered with swatches of red cloth on which are laid out watches of all kinds: pocket watches, watches with coloured dials and leather straps, metallic ones. There’s one where the complex gear mechanism is fascinatingly visible, one with a gold chip inside, and specials like the one featuring Appu, the elephant that was the mascot of the 1982 Asian Games, and an HMT Rakhee from the 1970s. The last one also features Bidri craftsmanship — a raised ornamental design from Karnataka’s Bidar district with silver sheets inlaid in a blackened alloy of zinc and copper.

During the interview, Pandey’s wife and mother keep a close eye on the watches, and with good reason. Several years ago, a man posing as a journalist knocked on their door for an unscheduled interview. After he left, Pandey discovered that one of his boxes had gone missing. “I learnt my lesson.” 

It’s not the market value of an HMT that is the true measure of the product. As a collector’s item, its value can oscillate between next to nothing to a significant sum, depending upon supply and demand. An HMT Kaushal, which has a floral henna-like design, can usually be bought for Rs 800. When it wasn’t available in the market, a collector paid Rs 39,000 for one of these. An HMT Pilot costs about Rs 2,200, but can fetch up to Rs 12,000 from an enthusiast. 

“HMT still has unsold stocks that it releases every now and then. So, what is expensive today in the collector’s market might not hold much value tomorrow if the line is restocked,” explains Pandey. Many believe that to own an HMT is to own a part of history. The HMT Kanchan, for example, was once known as the “dowry watch”. “I’ve heard about weddings being stalled if there wasn’t an HMT Kanchan in the mix. I think this is because ‘kanchan’ means ‘gold’, and gold is considered auspicious,” he elaborates.

Another popular watch is the HMT Janta, originally made for Japan. “It had the movements of Citizen watches (a Japanese brand) and had transparent backcases. It didn’t do well in Japan but Indian collectors, including me, have paid up to Rs 13,000 for it,” he says. 

Looking back at HMT’s history, Pandey talks about the brand’s hits and misses. When HMT introduced quartz watches in the ’70s and ’80s, India wasn’t ready for them. “Those watches didn’t do well at all. And when people were finally ready to pay for quartz watches, HMT decided to go back to mechanical ones,” says Pandey. Then there were times when successful marketing of a particular line would have people flocking to showrooms, but there wouldn’t be enough stock.

 In time, Pandey hopes to put together the stories behind each of HMT’s watches in a digital repository. It will be an online museum of sorts. Pandey is confident that HMT’s history, which is a strange mix of tragic turns and happy memories, will keep it ticking for a long time to come.