The Watch Keeper

The Watch Keeper…

I love to do things leisurely and get pretty messed-up, if at all, I do something in a rushed manner. I have so far only been able to complete my academic lessons well ahead of the dead line and have always reached the examination hall an hour in advance of the scheduled time. Except this small aberration, I keep everything for the last few minutes or hours before the deadline (even in my professional career). For me, multi-tasking at the last moment gives me such a ‘high’ and I am fully convinced that I am at my productive best during those last few moments. Hence, the concept of “time management” never appealed to me.

Since managing time was not a priority, using a time-keeper (a watch, I mean to say) was never an important thing for me. I got my first watch as a gift from my uncle for one of my exemplary academic achievements and I lost it on the very first day in my college hostel. I never bothered to buy myself a good watch even after I started my career as an Auditor (!). 

Things took a sudden turn when Suparno entered my life! He epitomizes the word “organized” and time management is an art, according to him. I proposed to start at 10 am on the first day we were to go out after engagement and he agreed readily. I did a thorough mental calculation that 10 am was a safe bet but to my horror, I woke up at 9.30am! Oh my God, only 30 minutes to get ready for the first date! ……. I had to compromise on 10 am starting time and reached the meeting point at 10.30 smiling broadly in a beautiful saree as if to make up for the lost time.

It didn’t help much as I could understand from his cold expression. “Was it too long a wait?” I wanted to be cheesy.

“What time did you wake up? Don’t you have a watch at home?” (by that time he was aware of all my bad habits), he quizzed me in a tone fitting to be an Auditor’s and not indulging like a lover. Could I afford to tell him the truth? Wasn’t it the first impression?

“No, I woke up long ago you but you know there was no water”, I tried to be sounding convincing. “Isn’t the saree nice? I am thinking of cutting my hair short, you know. It’s time consuming to maintain such long hair”, I went on incoherently trying hard to please him. While agreeing to 10am starting time, I did not take into account that "bad habits die hard".

The next day he came to office carrying a packet of Time House with a table clock in it for me and said curtly, “don’t come with the excuse of ‘no water’ next time you cannot wake up on time”. I forgot that he was a seasoned Auditor. I never lied to him after that day in these years of togetherness!

To train myself to be organized was the natural corollary post marriage. He gave me enough opportunity for self-learning and tolerated much more than expected. ….. but I love to stay with mess around me and went office without breakfast most of the days as time management was not my forte’.

On our first anniversary, I got a watch as if to remind me to live life coordinated with the tick of the clock. I tried whole-heartedly but gave up within a fortnight – it was too suffocating.

I got the second one on second anniversary as he was not the one to give up. I tried again doubly hard as the wastage of money on expensive watches started to pinch me hard. Huh, failed again after a month!

Before third anniversary, I tried to give him a scientific reason for this pitiable trait of mine to avoid being gifted another watch. “See, I think this has been genetically ingrained in me and hard to undo that”.

He was ready with his answer, “… but dad and mom are extremely organized”  

“May be there has been mutation of genes. It happens, you know. I have studied genetics, so…..” I was desperate.  On the third anniversary, I got a piece of jewelry but he gifted himself with a very expensive watch! He was determined to teach me ‘time management’.

In a span of 11 years, he acquired 28 watches, anniversary or no anniversary (some of them being really expensive one). Every time he buys a watch, I mentally calculate how much it would have added to our bank balance had he not purchased them and that really upsets me. To add to my woe, not only there is cost of acquisition, but there is a cost of maintenance too (he knows how to take care of his belongings unlike me). All these watches show time according to different time zone of this world as he tours the world and carries at least 7/8 of them wherever he goes. He immediately does not adjust to Dubai time once he comes back from his tour.   

I know about his love for watches and you can call him a ‘mobile encyclopedia’ on watches available on this earth. But is it only for the love for watches that he buys so many watches? Or is he still hoping that someday I will learn to be little organized and take time management seriously, at least, according to some time zone?

How do I make him understand that I set out to plan the day well but so many watches showing different times confuse me so much? So even if it is 12 pm Dubai time but may be 8 am in some part of the world (in one of his watches) and I decide to laze around for another hour before I start cooking. I get no clue as to how the kids have come home from school when it is 1.30 pm and I am still not done with my cooking! Then realization dawns on me, “ In Dubai it is already 3.30 pm”

“Oh! These hopeless watches! I need to keep all these watches locked in one drawer positively and today itself! Let me first empty one of the drawers today. In a second thought, I decide, “today? Nah, may be tomorrow”. That tomorrow never comes and I really do not get a chance to improve my time management skill!

The last weekend that we had been to Marina Mall, he set his eyes on an Omega watch and done his bit of research. I must know and demonstrate time management before he actually buys this one to teach me a lesson (on time management, I mean to say). I have a moral responsibility, after all, to help him improve the bank balance as well.

Are you hearing me, the Watch Keeper? I have started improving, you see. Its 12 pm Dubai time and I am thinking of starting to cook something for lunch.

 12 pm? Isn’t it a little early? I still have so many hours in the day! Let me start at 1 pm then …..