HMT watches, marketed throughout my childhood with the jingle, "If you have the inclination, we have the time," will no longer adorn the wrists of Indians.
Hindustan Machine Tools, one of India's largest public sector undertakings (PSU's, an acronym, which the public sector bashers of India had nicknamed "poshu", meaning "beast" in Bengali, were anathema to many in Socialist India because of their under-productivity and inefficiency) has closed shop, finally.
Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated HMT in collaboration with the Japanese multinational, Citizen, in 1964. Nehru's objective was to supply every Indian worker with a wrist watch, so she/he (mostly he) would value time, understand the importance of being on time and speedy accomplishment of tasks. A favorite quip of Nehru's was "Talk less, work more". HMT, along with other massive PSU's embodied the Nehruvian vision of a modernizing and industrializing India.
Since the opening up of the Indian economy to foreign brands, the sales of HMT watches had plummeted, but one of HMT's domestic competitors, Titan, a creation of the Tata corporation, had tolled a death knell for HMT watches long before foreign brands had.
I wore my first wristwatch in middle school; it was an HMT slim band watch with a tiny round, dial, the smallness and the lunar-shape being indicative of the wearer's gender, of course. It had belonged to my mom.
My very first wristwatch, which my dad presented to me during my last-year in high school was a Titan. It looked much more snazzier than an HMT, and had Roman numerals, something I totally loved. My father, who was a champion of the private sector, gleamed with delight as he announced the watch to have been made by a private corporation.
Looking back, the Titan had more attention to detail, as I remember the design was slick, and the color scheme reflected harmony. It was a better watch in the department of aesthetics, though I am certain it kept time the same way as its HMT counterpart did.
Bye, bye HMT.
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