Hi from God's own country

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Good morning from kerala, INDIA.
Glad to be accepted to this forum. Of late I frequent this forum so much that some of you are very familiar to me from the posts. dsio, cicindela, archer, gatorcpa, x350 xjr, conElPueblo to name a few.
A brief introduction.
I am 37 year old neurologist, happily married, have two lovely boys aged 10 and 2. For the past 2 years we moved to the hill country of Wayanad from the hustle and bustle of Kochi, the port city, where I was born and brought up. Now enjoying a peaceful but busy practice in a small town, where i am one of the only 2 neurologists in the whole district.
My love for the mechanical watch must have started from watching my papa's morning ritual of winding his HMT (Hindusthan machine tools) manual wind watch.71JE6Ci3iyL._UL1500_.jpg
This is a pic of a similar looking one from the net as the real one is not near me now.
Though far from the best quality or best finish this watch has kept ticking for the past 40 plus years. This is the watch company ,established in the early 60s,that revolutionised the watch culture in India. Prior to this only swiss brands like favre leuba, omega, west end watch co, tissot etc and Japanese brands like seiko, orient, citizen were available and could be afforded only by the super rich. HMT changed all that and made watches attainable to the masses. They were robust watches and could run faithfully for decades without any service which was very important to Indian condition then. The company soon rose to fame and sold millions and millions of watches and blew all foreign competition out of the country. However with advent of quarts movements and lack of proper management, the state run company declined and only one factory now remains and that too has completely stopped producing watches and only produces automobile and other machine parts.
The next proper mechanical watch to come my way was this onetitan-automatics-valence.jpg

Its a rose gold plated and steel, mechanical manual winding skeleton watch from the 'TITAN' company. Titan is the only large Indian manufacturer to rise up after the fall of HMT. They initially concentrated on quarts watches.Titan is a subsidiary of the TATA group of companies, the pioneer industrialists of free India. This particular model was from their early line up of mechanical watches which came out when people began to understood the romance and charm of mechanical watches and the 2nd era of mechanical watches came about.
I now want to own a Swiss vintage watch from the 50s, 60s the golden age of mechanical watches and is on the look out for the same. I like to research every thing that i buy ( thats half the fun ). That is when I came across this forum and the wealth of information here and fell in love with omega. I have decided my next watch will be a vintage omega and seek your help in finding one.
please correct and guide me through any mistakes regarding forum rules, etiquette as this is my 1st post.
Edited:
 
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Welcome Dr Paul.
Firstly I must correct you.
Kerala isn't actually God's own country. That accolade has been claimed by Queensland (home of Omega Forums).

However, when I consider that title, many of us have different gods, so if Kerala is considered to be God's own country by your god, then so be it.

I haven't been to that region of India, but from all of the travel shows I've seen, it's definitely a contender for the title.

As to you Dad's HMT, like many developing countries in the 20th century, watchmaking was seen as a way to promote national pride, employ people and reduce the cost of imports. While the HMT and other Indian brands weren't of the finished quality of Swiss and other established brands, they were much less expensive, very well made and robust enough for daily duty in a harsh environment. I often equate HMT et al to the Russian watches of the 20th century, not as pretty as the European brands, but cheap enough for the ordinary man and rugged enough to sustain daily/weekly/monthly/yearly wear without expensive "intervention.

Cheers
Jim
 
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Welcome! Nice introduction and good to have you. Thanks for sharing a bit about the Indian brands. Best of luck on the search for your Omega!
 
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Welcome Dr. Paul, and thank you for the insights into some of your domestically manufactured watches.

I was in Kerala well before you were born, in 1977, to be precise. It was, and I expect still is, a very beautiful state, known by some as the Venice of the East.
 
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Welcome to the Forums, Dr. Paul. I had the opportunity to visit my wife's family in Kerala back in 2019. Truly a beautiful place.
 
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Welcome Dr. Paul, and thank you for the insights into some of your domestically manufactured watches.

I was in Kerala well before you were born, in 1977, to be precise. It was, and I expect still is, a very beautiful state, known by some as the Venice of the East.
Thank you sir. I believe you were in alapuzha. It has a lot of inland water ways and islands only connected by the backwaters. It is a beautiful district in Kerala and attracts lot of tourists and annually holds the famous Nehru trophy boat races. It is sometimes referred to as the Venice of the east.
 
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Welcome aboard... while I have not been to India I have spent a considerable amount of my life studying Carnatic music.

Glad you are here.
 
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I was always assured, by Kiwis, that New Zealand was GOC?
 
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Welcome Dr Paul.
Firstly I must correct you.
Kerala isn't actually God's own country. That accolade has been claimed by Queensland (home of Omega Forums).

However, when I consider that title, many of us have different gods, so if Kerala is considered to be God's own country by your god, then so be it.

Cheers
Jim

I was always assured, by Kiwis, that New Zealand was GOC?

Like our Sourav Ganguly's famous words to Geoffrey Boycott, in connection with his infamous debacle at the Lord's stadium " Lords is your mecca, Wankhede is ours"

The title "God's own country" was used in refrence to Kerala in the hugely successful tourism advertisement campaign by the Kerala govt in the late 80s.

I am sure many will have an earlier claim.:)
 
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Like our Sourav Ganguly's famous words to Geoffrey Boycott, in connection with his infamous debacle at the Lord's stadium " Lords is your mecca, Wankhede is ours"

The title "God's own country" was used in refrence to Kerala in the hugely successful tourism advertisement campaign by the Kerala govt in the late 80s.

I am sure many will have an earlier claim.:)

Ganguli removing his shirt wasnt a debacle , it was the most befitting reply that he gave to Andre Flintoff who had done similar act in India before and was so impactful that we still talk about it :)
My interest in cricket reduced a lot after Ganguli, Sehwag, etc retried.

BTW I just read an article today that IPL which is the second most revenue generating game competition in world after America`s NFL is a serious challenge to the survival or cricket as we know it presently.
 
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Good morning from kerala, INDIA.
Glad to be accepted to this forum. Of late I frequent this forum so much that some of you are very familiar to me from the posts. dsio, cicindela, archer, gatorcpa, x350 xjr, conElPueblo to name a few.
A brief introduction.
I am 37 year old neurologist, happily married, have two lovely boys aged 10 and 2. For the past 2 years we moved to the hill country of Wayanad from the hustle and bustle of Kochi, the port city, where I was born and brought up. Now enjoying a peaceful but busy practice in a small town, where i am one of the only 2 neurologists in the whole district.
My love for the mechanical watch must have started from watching my papa's morning ritual of winding his HMT (Hindusthan machine tools) manual wind watch.71JE6Ci3iyL._UL1500_.jpg
This is a pic of a similar looking one from the net as the real one is not near me now.
Though far from the best quality or best finish this watch has kept ticking for the past 40 plus years. This is the watch company ,established in the early 60s,that revolutionised the watch culture in India. Prior to this only swiss brands like favre leuba, omega, west end watch co, tissot etc and Japanese brands like seiko, orient, citizen were available and could be afforded only by the super rich. HMT changed all that and made watches attainable to the masses. They were robust watches and could run faithfully for decades without any service which was very important to Indian condition then. The company soon rose to fame and sold millions and millions of watches and blew all foreign competition out of the country. However with advent of quarts movements and lack of proper management, the state run company declined and only one factory now remains and that too has completely stopped producing watches and only produces automobile and other machine parts.
The next proper mechanical watch to come my way was this onetitan-automatics-valence.jpg

Its a rose gold plated and steel, mechanical manual winding skeleton watch from the 'TITAN' company. Titan is the only large Indian manufacturer to rise up after the fall of HMT. They initially concentrated on quarts watches.Titan is a subsidiary of the TATA group of companies, the pioneer industrialists of free India. This particular model was from their early line up of mechanical watches which came out when people began to understood the romance and charm of mechanical watches and the 2nd era of mechanical watches came about.
I now want to own a Swiss vintage watch from the 50s, 60s the golden age of mechanical watches and is on the look out for the same. I like to research every thing that i buy ( thats half the fun ). That is when I came across this forum and the wealth of information here and fell in love with omega. I have decided my next watch will be a vintage omega and seek your help in finding one.
please correct and guide me through any mistakes regarding forum rules, etiquette as this is my 1st post.

You should get one Kohinoor for yourself and may be give one to your dad as well. From time to time, HMT replenishes its stock on its website.
BTW that Titan thing probably has some cheap chinese movement inside it.
 
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You should get one Kohinoor for yourself and may be give one to your dad as well. From time to time, HMT replenishes its stock on its website.
BTW that Titan thing probably has some cheap chinese movement inside it.
My dad passed 8 years ago quite unexpectedly. The watch is one of his many reminders and is kept safely at his place where mom and my younger brother are at. I wear it whenever I am there.
 
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