Metro cities suffer from a reputation of subjecting their inhabitants to unrelenting speeds of living. As slow-living and ‘keeping’, not ‘saving’, time, have started to be recognised as priorities, a few in Bengaluru have taken to it quite literally, keeping a lost art alive in the bustling city.
Horology, if one has not encountered it before, is a word that sounds like a combination of ‘horoscope’ and ‘astrology’. This ‘art of making instruments for indicating time’, according to Merriam-Webster, is precisely what has led a group of watch collectors and enthusiasts to form the Bengaluru Vintage Watch Collectors Club. Meeting every Saturday for breakfast, founder Kiran Munipalle and the group gather to talk about watches they’ve collected, watches they are eyeing or simply to catch up with one another. The group, now emulated by similar initiatives across India, is the only existing watch-club in Bengaluru that offers restoration services as well.
For most people in the club, the beginning of their fascination with watches was deeply personal. As Munipalle states, “Around the early nineties, I had received about three Swiss watches from my father; back then, I didn’t show too much of an interest and had actually put them in a locker and forgotten about them. Years later, the watches caught my attention, and I thought ‘Why don’t I explore this as one of my passions?’ That triggered my interest in horology.” Deveer Bellur, who acts as a co-admin of the club and is a banker, shares a similar story. “The first mechanical watch I had was gifted by my mom, which she used to wear back when she was in college. That probably ignited my passion back in my school days, but later, it faded. Then, around the pandemic, one of my close friends gifted me a Fossil watch; and that was the reignition,” he mentions.
Cumulatively, the club boasts a collection of over 15,000 watches across time-periods, spaces of origin, themes, and related categories; Munipalle’s ginormous collection accounts for most of it, with his foraging across various ‘themes’, including watches from before World War I, a period when wristwatches begun to be considered a staple for men. Interestingly, it is not just watch collectors that are welcome to the club, but anyone who is interested in horology. Akshay Kulkarni, an advertising filmmaker and consultant, is one such active member whose interest and knowledge about watches alone make him an integral part of the community. “I am very enthusiastic and I personally don’t believe in owning things. So it becomes more like a centre for learning. I would say this club is a university or a museum,” he says.
It is archiving that drives the community of the club, for all of them concur that it is heavily unlikely that the pendulum will shift in horology’s favour. Munipalle rues the fact that newer generations are averse to taking up watchmaking as a hobby or vocation because it is too complicated and hard to sustain financially. In hopes of bringing attention, Chandrashekhar, a member of the club, offers hosting events as a possible option, of which the club has done quite a few. Apart from their personal archival projects, the entire team is also open to preserving timepieces of personal value from those who are willing to approach the club. “We are more than welcome to accept watches of personal value, like heirlooms. We ensure good custody of them,” Munipalle asserts.
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