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Owning a Watch, Losing Time
For a species that has existed for the blink of an eye, barely a paragraph in the earth's history, humans have always been obsessed with time - keeping it, measuring it, holding it. It is as if numbering the hours might stop them from leaving us. As if somehow we can prevent the sky from darkening. Or love from wilting, like petals folding into themselves.
Maybe that's why we make these small, ticking machines. Tiny companions that measure the space between what we want to hold on to and what slips away.
My father’s first watch was an HMT, perhaps a Janata. Neither of us remembers much about it, except that it was not the kind of watch that would have ever started a conversation at a party. It was the kind of watch that would sit comfortably on the wrist of a man who knew and accepted his lot in life. What I do remember is watching my father take it off every night and place it beside the bed, like an old friend he trusted to keep watch while he slept.
Years later, when I realised that my fascination with watches was like a stubborn tune stuck in my head, I bought my first ‘serious watch’, an Oris Divers 65 reissue.
First launched in 1965, a decade when people questioned everything from war to waistlines, the watch is a relic of the counterculture movement. Except instead of burning draft cards, it rebels through typography. The numerals on its dial look like they’ve just returned from a protest, refusing to line up properly, bending slightly as if to say, ‘We’ll tell you the time, but we won't be polite about it.’
I tell myself that the Oris Divers 65 doesn’t shout for attention, but rather embraces a quiet defiance that comes from knowing exactly who it is. Something I’m still working on.
I wore it the day I took my diving test. A small beacon of familiarity in the darkening womb of the ocean. Past a school of fusiliers. A family of clownfish. And a lonely manta ray. I passed the test, though not without incident. Somewhere below, where the corals tower like forgotten castles, I swam a little too close. The sapphire glass of the Oris bears a battle scar from that moment. A permanent reminder that even things made to resist the ocean, sometimes leave with scars.
That scratch on the glass feels more real than the pristine surface of a brand-new watch ever could. It is proof that the watch has shared something of my life — not just measured my hours but gathered them.
Sometimes, when I look at the Oris, I think of my father’s HMT. How two watches can tell you two very different stories, and yet speak the same language. His, a story of steady ticking through long years of compromises and quiet strength. Mine, perhaps, still being written, marked by both adventure and hesitation.
The HMT is lost in the ravages of time now, not to be found even amongst old photographs and keys to locks no one remembers. I have often wondered, if it was found, would I want to get it repaired, and put it on my wrist from time to time? Maybe. Maybe not. What I know is that it is a conversation left unfinished, and sometimes those conversations are better completed in our heads.
So why do I keep winding my Oris every morning? Why do we wear watches in a world where time is always glowing from every screen?
Perhaps because, for all our attempts to master time, we still need rituals that remind us of who we are. And who we’ve become. Perhaps because winding a watch feels like shaking hands with time itself. Acknowledging its presence, and asking politely for one more day. Because when I hear that first soft click of the crown locking in, I sometimes think of my father. Of all the hours we’ve shared, and all the ones we didn’t. And perhaps because I want my son, one day, to wear the quiet defiance of the watch his father wore, and not have to finish the conversation in his head.
We are all creatures of time. But what makes us human is not how we measure it, but how we carry it, quietly ticking away on our wrists and in our hearts, hoping that, for today at least, we are enough.
Owning a Watch, Losing Time
For a species that has existed for the blink of an eye, barely a paragraph in the earth's history, humans have always been obsessed with time - keeping it, measuring it, holding it. It is as if numbering the hours might stop them from leaving us. As if somehow we can prevent the sky from darkening. Or love from wilting, like petals folding into themselves.
Maybe that's why we make these small, ticking machines. Tiny companions that measure the space between what we want to hold on to and what slips away.
My father’s first watch was an HMT, perhaps a Janata. Neither of us remembers much about it, except that it was not the kind of watch that would have ever started a conversation at a party. It was the kind of watch that would sit comfortably on the wrist of a man who knew and accepted his lot in life. What I do remember is watching my father take it off every night and place it beside the bed, like an old friend he trusted to keep watch while he slept.
Years later, when I realised that my fascination with watches was like a stubborn tune stuck in my head, I bought my first ‘serious watch’, an Oris Divers 65 reissue.
First launched in 1965, a decade when people questioned everything from war to waistlines, the watch is a relic of the counterculture movement. Except instead of burning draft cards, it rebels through typography. The numerals on its dial look like they’ve just returned from a protest, refusing to line up properly, bending slightly as if to say, ‘We’ll tell you the time, but we won't be polite about it.’
I tell myself that the Oris Divers 65 doesn’t shout for attention, but rather embraces a quiet defiance that comes from knowing exactly who it is. Something I’m still working on.
I wore it the day I took my diving test. A small beacon of familiarity in the darkening womb of the ocean. Past a school of fusiliers. A family of clownfish. And a lonely manta ray. I passed the test, though not without incident. Somewhere below, where the corals tower like forgotten castles, I swam a little too close. The sapphire glass of the Oris bears a battle scar from that moment. A permanent reminder that even things made to resist the ocean, sometimes leave with scars.
That scratch on the glass feels more real than the pristine surface of a brand-new watch ever could. It is proof that the watch has shared something of my life — not just measured my hours but gathered them.
Sometimes, when I look at the Oris, I think of my father’s HMT. How two watches can tell you two very different stories, and yet speak the same language. His, a story of steady ticking through long years of compromises and quiet strength. Mine, perhaps, still being written, marked by both adventure and hesitation.
The HMT is lost in the ravages of time now, not to be found even amongst old photographs and keys to locks no one remembers. I have often wondered, if it was found, would I want to get it repaired, and put it on my wrist from time to time? Maybe. Maybe not. What I know is that it is a conversation left unfinished, and sometimes those conversations are better completed in our heads.
So why do I keep winding my Oris every morning? Why do we wear watches in a world where time is always glowing from every screen?
Perhaps because, for all our attempts to master time, we still need rituals that remind us of who we are. And who we’ve become. Perhaps because winding a watch feels like shaking hands with time itself. Acknowledging its presence, and asking politely for one more day. Because when I hear that first soft click of the crown locking in, I sometimes think of my father. Of all the hours we’ve shared, and all the ones we didn’t. And perhaps because I want my son, one day, to wear the quiet defiance of the watch his father wore, and not have to finish the conversation in his head.
We are all creatures of time. But what makes us human is not how we measure it, but how we carry it, quietly ticking away on our wrists and in our hearts, hoping that, for today at least, we are enough.
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