Timekeeper calls it a day!

Bengaluru: “For the youth of the 80s and 90s, a prized possession was an HMT watch. Everywhere we looked, from working parents and grandparents to newlyweds – wrists proudly exhibited HMT watches. We did not know any other brand of superior quality and the era belonged to only HMT,” says Mr Prashant Pandey, a collector of HMT watches in the city.

Like Mr Pandey, whose love for HMT watches led him to form the HMT Watch Collectors group on Facebook, an entire generation has grown up with HMT. The time may have now run out for the ‘timekeepers of the nation’, but it’s not without pain that the country has bid adieu to its favourite timepiece.

“It’s like losing an elder in the family. It’s like having a friend with cancer; you know the end. It was a painful realisation that one day, India’s pride would be gone forever. Nobody could stop Titanic from sinking, isn’t it?” elaborates a pained Mr Pandey.

For decades, HMT had a sentimental value for Indians, especially Bengalureans as the watch factory was headquartered in the city. Like many old Bengalureans, who have been HAL, BEL or BHEL employees, for thousands of, HMT was home, HMT was life.

Recalls Mr Chandrashekar, an HMT employee, “In 1985, I got a job offer from Vidhana Soudha and HMT simultaneously. My family insisted that I take up the job at HMT, because the pay was better and there were better incentives,” he says.

The Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) was set up in 1961 and the golden era lasted for nearly three decades when the central government opened three more HMT branches across the country from the profits made by the Bengaluru watch manufacturing unit alone.

“The demand was high, in fact, it’s injustice to say only high. Every morning we walked into the factory, we could see people standing in long queues waiting to place an order. Those days are now only memories,” says Mr Chandrashekar.
He’s not wrong when he says, “There was a tradition three decades ago – every father compulsorily gifted an HMT watch to his child who scored well and every father had to give a Bajaj scooter and HMT watch as dowry while marrying off his daughter.”

The timepiece was a prized possession for students, a top pick for a wedding gift and a proud statement on office-goers’ wrists.

Fifty-five years later, a tradition has ended and the doors of HMT factory have shut forever. Terming the shutdown pragmatic, the employees take a walk down the memory lane, recalling their trying days. “A big blow hit us after 1996. The management stopped giving us salaries regularly. We have not received more than Rs 4,000 in the last 15 years. In the hope that the company could be revived, we stayed back in support. But soon, we were proved wrong. We were given Rs 2,000 or Rs 3,000 as advance salary and were asked to wait. To pay our bills, educate our children and run our lives, we have withdrawn from our PF money. If not for it, we would have died many years ago,” says Lingaraju, who recently took VRS. While there was stiff competition from new and international brands, competition alone did not fell the popular ‘Miniratna PSU’, says Mr Chandrashekar

“In the mid-1990s Titan entered the market and all the technocrats, designers and engineers at HMT moved to Titan for higher salaries. Since the management was still making big profits, it did not sense the danger. There was no technology upgradation or research & development activities. Caught in a time wrap, there was no other logical end but to shut the factory,” he says.

‘What next?’ The question gets Munegowda (name changed) thinking. Gazing deep into the far, with moist eyes, he says, “Since all the employees are leaving the company on VRS, we will get money. An FD deposit in bank and a part-time job in a small company should help us survive. We are too old to do anything else.”

Amid the pain, a smile sparkles on his face at the last thought, "You know, ever since it’s become news that HMT will shutdown, the sales have sky-rocketed. We will sell watches only till March and nearly 2,000 watches are being sold in 2 days through online orders!"