Chasing Time Volume 4: Dreams of Adventure

A large chunk of my years at high school went in dedication to causes other than horology, mostly in trying not to make a fool of myself and thus staying clear from a detrimental life of teenage humiliation. However, the final stages of high school and the advent of college brought upon a new conundrum, of trying to be a young adult. A young strong adult who was still adventurous and a young strong adventurous adult who was cool.

At these crossroads of youth and quasi-adulthood I was caught staring at the stark reality of who I really and truly was, a daydreamer. I wanted to be a pro-golfer, a fighter pilot, a stately business tycoon, a philanthropist (I had no money but that didn’t matter), a lover (I figured that I didn’t need too much money for this), a genetic scientist, a writer. Life and luck had other ceremonious plans however.

With each phase of being the person I dreamed to be, I had a fitting watch. The business tycoon and philanthropist had a not-so-real Rolex, another not-so-real gold watch that left green stains on skin, a Fossil watch that was gifted and a Kenneth Cole quartz chronograph that I purchased from an outlet mall in Buffalo, NY. The lover, golfer, genetic scientist, writer, and fighter pilot had the same Kenneth Cole watch.

This was the watch I wore and remember most from my later years as a teenager. It had a lot going for it: first, it was an expensive watch at $200 or thereabouts making it an adult purchase. Second, the square face with the sub-dials, date function, and genuine leather strap made it wearable for a whole host of imaginative scenarios from boardroom meetings to lazy margaritas in the Cayman Islands. Plus, I had blown all my available excess capital on that watch and the rest went towards paying for petrol and dates.

It was a memorable time of my life, and what I had on my wrist perhaps mattered little then, but matters a lot in retrospect. The Kenneth Cole chronograph got me subliminally wanting cluttered and complicated dials. Such subliminal wants moved me to my first watch purchase with my then girlfriend and now wife, a Tissot PR Quartz Chronograph for a princely sum of Rs. 14,000/- from my first paycheck in India. That was a key event in my life, as I had moved countries and had made major career changes, and so the watch felt like a triumph. I was, like the adventurous racer on the display advert, getting my life on track. Since then, I have found myself purchasing a watch for all key events in my life of adventure.

The problem was that my definition of key events started to falter.

Read Volume 3, here.

Read Volume 5, here.

Vikram Ramchandani is father to a beautiful girl and husband to an even more beautiful girl. Canadian but really Indian. Left university and home at 21 and became an investment banker for many unhappy people and is now an entrepreneur who employs many happy people. Is full katti with the current education system for mutating children into adults.