A trip to the local watchmaker

Last year I was introduced to a local watchmaker by a fellow watch enthusiast when I was looking to get a couple of my watches serviced. Thankfully he is located about 10 mins walking from my office, so I decided to pay him a visit. I always thought I would write a post on him, but never got around to doing it, so finally here it goes...

Mr. Murali belongs to a generation of watchmakers and that is quite evident with some of the tools you can see that belonged to his father. The first time I spoke with him I knew he was very experienced and soon I was proved right. Turns out he has worked with a lot of watch companies including Omega.

The workspace itself is really tiny, somewhere around 6ft by 4ft (by my estimate) but don't let that deter you. He is experienced in servicing simple mechanical movements to minute repeaters - that's right, he even works on minute repeaters.

There is watch making stuff and spare parts everywhere! On the table, the shelves, the floor, needless to say, he makes the best possible use of the available space and it's amazing to see a mix of old and modern tools.

If you love talking about watches and different movements, you've come to the right place. On so many occasions I've dropped in to for something small, like a battery change, that would normally taken maybe 5 mins but ended up staying for 30 mins or more conversing about something interesting.

Some of his clients even sell their watches through him so it's always good to ask him. I've seen some really nice vintage and new watches for sale and it's really hard to control the temptation to buy something. Even if I don't buy, it's always fun to try them out.

busy workbench

cool vintage Seamaster

another beautiful vintage in for service - a Movado moonphase

Servicing costs are extremely reasonable, especially when compared with the authorised service centres. He also believes in using only original parts if something needs to be replaced during service. His years of working in this industry has resulted in him acquiring a lot of useful contacts who can help him procure these spare parts.

If you're looking for him, a quick google search for 'Murali Watch Centre' will give you his address and contact information.

Off Topic: How to claim your unclaimed RC (Vehicle Registration Certificate)

Congratulations on your new car! Everything went off smoothly and all the nights spent researching the right car for you has finally paid off. You arrive at the showroom, sign a few papers, have a small celebration and drive your car home. You’re also told that the RC will be sent to your address in a few days. It’s so simple. What could go wrong?

Well… as it turns out, the day the postman came to deliver the RC to your place, you happened to be out. You return home to find a small slip of paper on your door, informing you to collect the RC from the RTO (Regional Transport Office). Now, for most RTO related issues, you can always get hold of an agent who’ll do it for you. However, I BELIEVE in this case, the owners themselves are required to collect it in person. (Although, I'm not a 100% certain on this.)

How do you go about it? How do you claim your unclaimed RC? Read on to find out.

(Side note: This procedure is for a visit to the Andheri West RTO (Mumbai). However, the process should be similar to most RTOs in the country)

Source

Step 1: PREP!
Before you visit the RTO, have the following with you. It’ll save you a lot of hassle and (additional) running around.
-Tax certificate and car invoice. I just carried my entire document folder to be safe.
-ID proof (PAN, Aadhar, Passport). Original + copy
-Address Proof copy (Aadhar, passport, phone bill, etc) This should have the same address as mentioned on your RC
- A Pen

Helpful Tip: Have a back up of all your important documents on you phone. In case you forget to carry your documents, you can always get them printed at the shop around the corner.


Step 2: Visit the RTO
IMPORTANT: When I called up the RTO, they told me that the RC collection can be done on Tuesdays or Fridays, between 10:30AM and 3PM. This is incorrect. The correct timings are 10:30AM to 2PM.


Step 3:
Head to the second floor and ask for the server room (I’m going to abbreviate this to SR). As soon as you're there, you'll realise that there is no concept of a que. So you will be required to wrestle your way to the window (it helps if you're tall) and let them know that you have an unclaimed RC. They’ll check the status and give you the date on which it was sent out from the RTO (or returned to the RTO - I’m not quite sure). Make a note of this date as this is important.


Step 4:
Head to ‘Window No. 7’ (I’m going to abbreviate this to W7) and tell them that you have an unclaimed RC. You’ll get a form, which you need to fill out. Of course, to make things cumbersome, the form is in Marathi. Fortunately, you can ask what's needed to be filled in. Information required is your name, license plate number and the date on which your RC was sent to your place. This is where you enter the date given to you at the SR. Submit that, along with an id proof copy. The person behind the counter will have a look and then ask you to check the status of the RC back at the SR.


Step 5:
Go back to the SR and check the status of the RC. Mine was “unclaimed RC”, which basically means that you missed out on collecting your RC when it was delivered to your address.


Step 6:
Armed with this information, head back to W7 and let the person behind the counter know. If you visit the RTO early, It should be possible to collect your RC on the same day. Unfortunately for me, I reached 5 minutes before it was shutting (I was misinformed about the timings on the phone) hence, I was asked to collect it the following Tuesday.


Step 7:
Go back to W7, submit the form (which they gave back to you), and someone will fetch the RC from a pile of unclaimed RCs on the desk behind them. Submit a copy of you ID and address proof (can be the same if you have something like a passport). They’ll sign it, attach a few more papers and ask you to deposit the fee.


Step 8:
Head to Window No. 17 (cashier) and deposit the fee. In this case it was Rs. 50. You’ll be handed a receipt that you need to submit at Window No. 8.


Step 9:
Hand over the entire lot of papers to the person at Window No. 8, sign against your name in the register and you will FINALLY be handed over your RC.


Step 10:
Keep that thing safe! And next time you buy a car, try and be home when the RC is delivered.

Now I am aware this is technically a watch blog, but I just wanted to share this with anyone who’s in a similar situation and is not being able to find a solution to their problem.

Watch Enthusiasts of India GTG - Mumbai

A watch GTG is always great - like minded people meet up and talk about stuff that most people normally react to as "why do you need more than one watch?" Oh and there was booze and good food, so that's as good an excuse to attend.

Some of you may have read my earlier post on an earlier GTG for us watch enthusiasts in India, if not, you can check it out here.

This time we are in Mumbai, the financial capital of India and also the city I reside in :)

December is a great time to visit Mumbai as the weather tends to get pretty pleasant (at least when compared to the summers here).The date was 17th December, and after a lot of searching around we managed to find a restaurant that was willing to give us a private dining area big enough for 15-20 people. We were 15 of us in total, so this worked out great. While most of the WISes that attended this event were from Mumbai, we did have a few who could join us from other cities as well.

The official time for the GTG was set at 7pm, but that didn't stop some of us from starting quite a bit early. A few of the attendees planned a tour of different watch shops and ADs all over the city. I unfortunately had a few chores to take care of, so I couldn't join them.

At around 5:30pm I met up with a fellow watch enthusiast from Delhi for a couple of beers. He was wearing a very cool Speedy that I had seen pics of earlier and couldn't wait to try on.

The traffic in this city can get quite bad, especially on a Saturday evening, so we called for a cab and headed to the venue. Coincidently, we all reached at the same time which meant no waiting around, the GTG was ON!

Before I start, a quick disclaimer: there wasn't too much light in the private dining room at the venue. We asked the manager if he could arrange for some more lights but were told that there was another event happening and they were using up all the spotlights . So the pics aren't the best, but thankfully this time I had a better phone camera.

One by one the watch boxes were set on the table and soon we had more watches in the room than comments on a Rolex vs Omega thread (it's funny if you are on a watch forum)!

We had, Seiko, Rolex, Omega, Grand Seiko, Universal Geneve, IWC, Panerai, Longines, Breitling, Tag Heuer, Orient, H2O, Laco, HMT, Casio, many more interesting brands....oh and an Apple Watch.

OK, enough talk, time for some pics...

A pleasant surprise, a fellow WUS member put his gorgeous vintage Longines on a strap made by me.

It looked great! Yay!

moving on..

This G-Shock was my fav watch from the GTG:

Someone brought along a small UV light and we all went crazy trying to charge the lume on our watches. And because of the dim light, the lume really showed.

As you can probably tell, I did not get the time to try on all the watches :(

Some of the guys brought along some stuff to giveaway (SWAG time), these included watch straps, books and even some awesome personalised mugs (courtesy Reggie - WUS member RejiTJoseph).

Seriously, so awesome!

A big thanks to Karan and Abhishek (WUS members phoenix844884 and Sunn27 respectively) for taking the initiative to make this GTG happen. We all had a fantastic time! Until next time, this is Crazyfingers signing out.