TIME MACHINE

WATCH FOR TIME

Many times our buying decisions are based on impulse or the craving to possess what others have, rather than on need or logic.

For instance I brought a digital Casio watch with built in calculator about 15 years back. At that time it was a novel item and a couple of my friends had it. It was so fascinating to have a calculator handy and the watch also had other features such as alarm, stop watch etc.

In the first few days I had used the calculator a couple of times. The buttons were so cramped it was not very convenient to use it. I have rarely used the calculator-function since then.

It is not as if I am the only fool around. There are many persons who sport a calculator-watch and rarely have I seen even one of them using it for calculation. May be they are shy to use it in front of me.

There is a friend who never failed to let me know that the gold that glittered on his wrist was a Rado for which he had paid $500 because it had a special hardened cut glass face which is “scratch proof”­ and “break-proof”­. He demonstrated to me the truth of this claim by rubbing the watch on the wall, on the table top and once even with a pen knife. The glass was still perfect, in immaculate condition after all the abuse. He said the watch was guaranteed scratch proof for 50 years at the least.

The other day he was very upset and I asked him what was wrong. He said he left his watch on the table when he went for his prayers, but when he came back his watch was missing. He moved around asking everybody whether they had seen his watch. He couldn’t trace it.

His loyalty to Rado is unbelievable. It is almost as if he is addicted to this brand for some reason. He brought another Rado thereafter, although for a comparatively lower price but still with a scratch proof glass.

He was all praise for Rado and even took a jibe at me for being so tight on my spending. He said I should throw away my old watch and buy a stylish Rado.

I had to politely turn down his suggestion by saying that in my mind a watch was to show me the time and the watch I was wearing was good enough and very dependable. It had shown the time - all the time- fairly accurately. It looked decent enough to me. I needed to change the strap every year or so but otherwise it did not demand anything more.

The brand names such as Corum, Rado and Cartier did carry a snob value and people wore them more to show their status than to see the time. I was not disturbed by the ordinary name of Casio on my watch.

He laughed at my ignorance and my lack of appreciation for a masterpiece like his Rado. I had to correct him that I did appreciate the excellence of his watch. It fitted so well on his robust wrist. But it didn’t make me run for a Rado to replace my ‘old’ Casio, just for the heck of it.

On a rainy day, not long afterwards I was in a hurry to get to work. I parked my car in the parking lot, took my heavy yellow raincoat from the boot, squeezed into it and sprinted to my office. I removed the raincoat and hung it on the coat stand in a corner of my office. When I sat down at my desk I noticed that I couldn’t see the time because there was no watch on my wrist. I recollected having worn it, so I searched my rain coat, the floor, the corridor and later (when the rain subsided) I went all the way upto my car, but there was no trace of my watch. It was gone.

I told myself that it was not the end of life, I had a standby watch which was a wedding present to me. It was older but still running OK. So I started using that (a Favre Leuba) and my Rado friend was shocked. He couldn’t believe that I would go from an old one to an older one. He branded me a miser.

In order to keep up his friendship and also to experience the freedom to choose and be liberated form my own self imposed restrictions, I went to the watch shops and came out with a Seiko. It was still a simple watch reasonably priced at $30.

The next day when he saw me wearing a different watch my friend was curious to find out what make it was. I said it was a Rado. He said it was not - a Rado had a distinct look which he could know from miles away.

I let him see the watch. He was unable to read the name since he didn’t have his reading glasses on hand. He still maintained that it couldn’t possibly be a Rado.

I told him that it was one of a new range from Rado which was meant for simple people. It didn’t have an expensive scratch - proof glass but otherwise it had all the good attributes of Rado. Handicapped as he was without his reading glasses, it was beyond him to disprove my statement.

Later that day I managed to lift the name Rado from a watch advertisement (from an Airline inflight magazine) and carefully stuck it on the dial of my Seiko.

Next day this Rado fan was equipped with his reading glasses and insisted on reinspecting my watch to make sure of its identity. I said it didn’t matter to me what make it was, as long as it showed correct time. He didn’t leave me until I showed the watch again but I was enjoying the unbelieving look on his face. He said it was a duplicate and I had been cheated.

I said I bought it in good faith. Because he was singing the praise for Rado so much, I wanted to give it a fair try. So far the watch was keeping the time accurate to the second and I had nothing to complain.

How else do you deal with people who refuse to believe that there can be other ways different form their own.

I haven’t bothered to remove the Rado label form my watch since it didn’t matter to me, one way or the other.

As Marilyn Ferguson observed, “No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or by emotional appeal”.