Friendship in the military is built right from day one and in many cases, even before joining the army. Starting with the military academy at Dehradun, I was fortunate to build a strong relationship with many so that over years, I now have close to 250 very close friends in military.
One thing about a bunch of us joining together, is that we also tend to retire together. So, it was no surprise that of these 250, nearly 80 retired in past three years and 22 would be retiring this year. Amongst them was Col. Amrit Singh who, along with me, commanded various forward posts including the ones facing China and Pakistan. In fact, both of us were posted in forward areas a total of 5 times in the past 12 years or so and fortunately for both of us, we are still alive.
Col. Amrit Singh will be retiring this year (while I will be retiring next year). As per norm, the unit gives a rousing send-off party and a gift. Close friends give their own gifts. Col. Amrit Singh is an avid watch collector and has close to 40 different watches some of which are WWII vintage and each today, worth a small fortune.
He prefers watches that are simple in design but highly functional. He does not prefer the “jazzy ones” with multiple “ears” (buttons) sticking out of them. “Neat and clean” – just like the military is how he prefers his watches.
Amongst brands he loves, are the old German brands such as the Bethge & Sohne, Archimede, Chronoswiss, Damasko and so forth. Amongst modern day wrist watches, he has a preference for the Seiko for their simplistic design “that hides a very intelligent mechanism inside” is how he would often describe Seiko.
So it was, that I decided to gift him a Seiko watch as my gift on his retirement day. But which watch? Seiko has so many to choose from. The local watch stores I visited in Delhi were not of much help. They had these modern fancy watches with all kinds of meaningless sub-dials.
My son suggested I check online and so it was, that I visited https://www.citywatches.in. This website had a range of brands and watches to choose from. Their range under Seiko too was breath-taking.
While browsing their range of Seiko watches, I came across this beauty; Seiko 5 Military SNK805K2-SS1 Automatic Black Leather Strap Men’s Watch.
The dial of this watch was military green with two sets of white numbers on it; an outer ring consisting of numbers that indicated seconds and an inner ring that consisted of numbers indicating the hour. And then of course, it also displayed the day and date which was important because as we grow older, one often tends to forget what day or date it is. I loved the Seiko 5 Military SNK805K2-SS1 Automatic Black Leather Strap Men’s Watch and I instinctively felt that Col. Amrit Singh would love it too. Also, the watch was ‘automatic’ meaning it worked on hand movement and required no battery change. The overall appearance of the Seiko 5 Military SNK805K2-SS1 Automatic Black Leather Strap Men’s Watch
