Watchmanship

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Confession Time

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About a decade ago, I was staying with my mom (then 80) at her place in AP for performing the annual shraadh (death anniversary) rites of my Father who had passed away a decade earlier.

The telephone rang and my 'son of a fun' announced that he scored a Summer Quarter in Fluid Dynamics taught by ME Dept and so he wouldn't be traveling that summer.

I said fine, since he was expecting it, and I was all for SQ which is a boon to students to improve their grades; and in any case Fluid Dynamics is a weird subject taught in different screwy ways by ME, CE, Ch E, AE, Math, and KK: it is like our Paanchaali Pancha Bhartrika (Draupadi with 5 husbands and an unfortunate sixth passed over).

My mom was curious and I told her that my son flunked in one subject.

She raised her voice haughtily and proclaimed: "None in our family ever failed in any Exam so far", thereby indicating that my son shattered all her Guinness Records.

Of course she was in a denial mode, the birth right of women crossing 80 and achieving a selectively convenient amnesia.

She forgot that I was witness to her both brothers failing; one in SCC and the other in MD in first attempt. And her eldest daughter in MD, next one in Class VIII, the next but one in Class X and B Com, and sundry in-laws and out-laws in various exams and so on...

She only remembers the University Firsts {;-}

But she thought that it was a well-kept secret that her husband (before she married him) flunked in Physics Lab...she didn't know that I, being the only son among his six daughters, was a Father Confessor to my Father; and he told all about his bahana that he was shifted midway to a different table on which he forgot to orient the Coil of his Tangent Galvanometer in the Magnetic Meridian at the Christian College, Madras; and the Examiner didn't show any Christian Forgiveness.

He also told me that his marriage flouted the Sarda Act, which stipulated that the bride should be at least 14 at the time of her marriage. I didn't pursue the matter but was amazed at another of those Bizarre Coincidences since my mom's name happened to be Sarda. I always thought that the Sarda Act referred to girls as a class. When I came across a student in my First Year Lab named Sarda, I asked him casually if he heard of Sarda Act and he replied that the Rai Saheb Harbilas Sarda who propelled this Act through the British Indian Legislature in 1929 was his great-grandfather.

But I digress.

My Father also told me that he got:

1. A silver dining plate of a few kg
2. A full dress-suit
3. A gold ring of a few sovereigns
4. A Favre-Leuba wrist watch

as wedding gifts, gloating that such expensive goodies were unheard of (for a chap who ignored magnetic meridian).

It is this last (wrist watch) that fascinated me in my childhood mainly because I was not allowed to touch it; and so I was dying to fiddle with it (a lesson in child-rearing).

I used to watch my Father key-in his precious watch daily; and that made a nice creaking sound.

I also saw him once pull out the 'key button' and turn it a little to adjust time.

This simply fascinated me and I was dying to do it.

One day, when I was about 5 years old, I opened my Father's Table Drawer where he used to safe-keep his watch when he went for his bath, took it out, pulled the 'key button' and turned it this way and that to my heart's content, pushed it back, kept it in and closed the Drawer.

Before leaving for his school, my Father opened the Drawer to wear his watch and discovered that it was ticking like the devil, but was running more than 5 hours fast. He was mystified that a Favre-Leuba played such ignoble pranks, but adjusted the time and left for school where he found it runng like a ruddy chronometer, correct to the second.

This went on for a few days and the mystery was making him lose his sleep.

But on the ninth day, when I was having my fun with his Favre-Leuba, someone (must be my younger nuisance sister) rushed into the room, and I had to drop it back in a hurry forgetting to push in the 'key-button'.

The cat with nine lives was finally out of the bag!

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