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09:48 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
August 31, 2013
How often does a watch without a battery tell the time correctly in a day? Old trick question. Not much a trick, though, obviously, twice even if it never works.
I am not a watch person. To me it is something that tells me to be sure to get to the airport three hours earlier so you can sit two hours on an uncomfortable chair and watch other people catching flights...or keep looking at it when your date is late.
The other day a friend who is a collector (why would you collect watches, they all do exactly the same thing) took me swimming to his club where he showed me his watch, the charm of it being that it can go deep down to 100 metres, wasn’t that wonderful. He had paid roughly the price of a three bedroom house for it.
So what? You cannot swim, I said, if you are down 100 metres believe me you’ll have a lot more to worry about than the time. Coming more to the point the shallow end where you sit and sip is four feet and your wrist is above the water holding a glass.
I don’t think we are going to be friends for very long. But if I want jewellery, I’ll ask for it. A watch is just that...a watch. And people who babble on about their watches are as bad as people who fly first class and tell you about it.
Why is it a reflection of my personality? Not flying first class, the watch? In a world where most of our clothes have other people’s names on it (as I write this I am wearing a T shirt with Usain Bolt monogrammed on it) how does a watch which is sold by its branding (not yours) reflect your personality?
Yet this fascination with chronometers (Chronometers??????) is global so it must have some logic which defeats me. You have two hands which is okay. Then you have a third hand which is acceptable because every second counts. Then you have four and five hands and needles and little globes and half moons and stuff that would have made Galileo as happy as a bunny with all that geometry on his wrist but it is still ten past ten.
And do you know why all watches are advertised at that time? Ten past ten. Nothing magical about it. Just that it’s the closest you get to a smiley face.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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