Marking Time: My Fascination with Watches

Buying one is well beyond my means, but I do love mechanical Swiss watches. Thankfully, companies like Timex, Seiko and Citizen are also making some excellent automatic watches these days that are vastly more affordable than those high-end Swiss watches, and are so much better value for money

I currently don’t own a watch and haven’t actually worn one for quite some time now. And yet, one of my favourite pastimes is looking at watches on the Internet; watch manufacturers’ websites, used watches websites, Amazon and Flipkart. In fact, I especially enjoy looking at watches on Amazon and Flipkart and my ‘process’ for this is always the same. I first search for ‘men’s watches’ or ‘watches for men,’ and then use the filters provided to fine-tune the results. The filters are everything, they help you separate the wheat from chaff. You can choose which brands you want to see. Band material and colour. Case size and shape, dial colour, display type, movement type. Price range. The permutations and combinations are practically endless.

Book Review: Flying Blind - The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

One assumes airplanes are safe. As in, totally, completely safe. In recent decades, air travel has become so commonplace, so mundane, we never ever think we might be at any sort of risk when flying. Given the number of accidents that happen every single day on roads – involving cars, motorcycles, trucks and buses – flying seems to be so much safer. And for the most part, it is. Things don’t go wrong too often, but when they do – when planes crash – those who are in those planes don’t usually walk away. Almost inevitably, lives are lost. Sometimes, these accidents in aviation do happen by chance, a freak occurrence, something that nobody could have predicted or prevented in any way. But some do happen because of sheer negligence and/or shoddy engineering. Peter Robinson’s book, Flying Blind: The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing, is the shocking story of how things went wrong at Boeing, an American icon and one of the most respected, trusted aircraft manufacturers in the world.

40 Years of the Ferrari GTO

The mid-1980s Ferrari 288 GTO is a proper, old-school Italian supercar. Looks magnificent!

The Ferrari 288 GTO was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1984 and only 272 units of the car were produced till 1987, when Ferrari stopped making this car. The Pininfarina-designed 288 GTO was powered by a 2.8-litre twin-turbo V8 that produced 395 horsepower and 496Nm of torque, with power going to the rear wheels via a 5-speed manual gearbox. The 288 GTO could accelerate from zero to 100kph in less than five seconds and was capable of hitting a top speed of 305kph.

Driving a Ferrari 308 GTSi in Lonavala

Mr Fali Dhondy's Ferrari 308 GTSi, which I drove in Lonavala back in 2003

I had dreamt of driving a Ferrari ever since I was a schoolkid and my first shot at piloting a car produced in Maranello came sometime in 2003, when I was working with Motoring magazine, which was at that time published by Business Standard. Srini, the classic cars specialist at BSM was going to Khandala for one of his drives/photoshoots and I offered to tag along. Little did I know then, what was in store for me that day.

The Best Car Shows on YouTube

Here's a list of my favourite car shows/channels on YouTube, which put you in the driver's seat

Back in the early-2000s, car enthusiasts who wanted to watch screaming Ferraris, tyre-shredding Lamborghinis and drifting-sideways Porsches on television did not have too many shows to choose from. In terms of top-quality content, two British shows led the way; there was Top Gear on the BBC and Fifth Gear on Channel 5, in the UK. Accessibility in India was a grey area – the BBC was officially available on cable but Channel 5 wasn’t. However, rips of both shows were available on various torrents sites online, for those who were prepared to take their chances with the law. There were also one or two car shows on Indian television back then, but those were quite dull and poorly made. 

Back then, twenty years ago, television was still king and the Internet was for exchanging emails and downloading MP3s. The video-sharing website YouTube came along in 2005, but given the low bandwidth and slow internet speeds in those days, and the lack of professional video content creators for the internet, nobody could have imagined that it would someday become the best platform for special-interest content on the Web.

Things change. Today, Top Gear is no longer being produced and The Grand Tour has ceased to exist. Fifth Gear is still chugging along (Jason Plato and Vicki Butler-Henderson are still there, Tiff Needell isn’t) but was never quite in the league of those other two shows to begin with. In any case, it’s YouTube that’s taken centre stage these days with its plethora of car shows – many different kinds of car shows tailored for different audiences worldwide.

Here's a quick list of the car show I watch on YouTube, which you might also like if you’re a car/motorcycle enthusiast.

Countach Once More

That's the new, limited edition Countach, which Lamborghini unveiled in 2021

If ever there’s been anything that is the very embodiment of the term ‘Italian supercar,’ it’s the original Lamborghini Countach. Designed by the great Marcello Gandini, the Countach set the template for dramatic, wedge-shaped supercars, many of which have followed in its footsteps over the last few decades. The first Countach prototype was unveiled at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show and the car went into production in 1974, with Lamborghini going to on to produce close to 2,000 units of this car until 1990, when the Countach was replaced by the Diablo.

T.50: Gordon Murray Rides Again

Back in 2020, Gordon Murray Automotive (GMA) unveiled their new supercar, the T.50, which features a host of ground-breaking technologies and which looks set to annihilate anything currently being produced by other car manufacturers. Here’s a quick look at what makes it so deeply impressive

Back in the early-1990s, British automotive engineer and designer extraordinaire, Gordon Murray rewrote the supercar rulebook with the McLaren F1. Powered by a 6.1-litre, 620-horsepower naturally aspirated BMW V12, the McLaren F1 offered intense acceleration (zero to 200kph in less than 10 seconds!) and a scarcely-believable top speed of 386kph. Between 1992 and 1998, only 106 units of the F1 were built with each costing more than $800,000 back then. These days, on the rare occasions when one comes up for sale at an auction, the price can go up to as much as $25 million.

A Dream That Came True: Riding the Kawasaki ZX-12R Ninja

You can have it. Only, you have to want it bad enough, they say. And that, apparently, is exactly how it is

‘Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly,’ said poet Langston Hughes. And while I don’t think he had motorcycles in mind when he wrote this, it certainly does apply to bikes as well – dreams of riding insanely fast bikes that are, on the face of it, well beyond your means. Let me explain.

Pet Shop Boys: Still Rocking after 40 Years

Everybody will Dance was released in August this year. It's the 1980s all over again

I first listened to the Pet Shop Boys sometime in the late-1980s when their second album, Actually, was released. The album cover – whimsy and eccentric – was what attracted me in first place and I guess I must have paid something like Rs 35-40 for the cassette, which I must have then played on repeat dozens of times over the next few months. I especially loved the songs It's a Sin, What Have I Done to Deserve This? and Rent – all of which I still listen to, to this day, 35 years after I first heard them. The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, sure did have one hell of a talent for creating electronica-disco. And the best part is, the duo are still at it, still rocking, still creating music that has the power to move fans of 1980s-style disco. Just listen to Everybody will Dance, which was released in August this year as part of a five-track digital bundle.

Everything about music itself and the ways in which people buy (or not) and listen to music has changed in the last 3-4 decades and the 1980s seems like a faraway place in a distant time, on a distant planet, at least in the context of music. And yet there’s Pet Shop Boys, still making music their way, still weaving their old magic, still making people dance. Making everybodydance. More power to them – may their music never stop.

Jargon Buster: Know your Watch

Once you know what all those fancy terms mean (as explained below), you'll understand what watch 'complications' mean and what they do. It is, after all, just a matter of time...

Ready to splurge on your first expensive watch but intimidated by the barrel of complications thrown in your face? If you don’t know a Tonneau from a Tourbillon, have no fear; this jargon-buster, where I explain 50 terms that are commonly used in the world of high-end watches, will help you go hammer and gongs against the next snooty watch salesman you come across!  

Analog
A watch that displays the time via physical hour and minute hands, which are powered by an automatic or quartz movement. So, unless your watch’s primary display is a digital LCD, it’s an analog watch.  

Automatic
A mechanical watch that does not require its crown to be wound up manually. Instead, the movement of the wearer’s wrist moves a counterweight (also referred to as a rotor), which then powers the mainspring, which in turn moves the gears that power the watch’s hands. Unlike quartz watches, there’s no battery here.

Aviator Watch
An aviator watch, also called a pilot watch, was originally designed for aviators and featured a large, easy-to-read black dial, triangle marker at 12 o’clock and a ratcheted, extra-large crown. While the Cartier Santos, one of the earliest aviator watches, was square shaped, post-WW1 military specs have demanded that aviator watches must only be round.

A Quick Chat with Kevin Schwantz

No. 34, Kevin Schwantz, the most spectacular rider on the track in the 1980s

In 2006, when I was working for BIKE India magazine in Pune, I had an opportunity to do a (very brief) interview with Kevin Schwantz, winner of the 500cc motorcycle grand prix road racing world championship in 1993. While some other riders have won more world championships and have more race wins to their name, Schwantz’s flamboyant riding style and his all-or-nothing approach to motorcycle racing stand out to this day – something that legions of his fans will attest to. I have been a huge Schwantz fan ever since the late-1980s, when I first started watching motorcycle racing on television (and sometimes on video cassettes, whenever I could get my hands on those) and often found myself rooting for the Suzuki rider.

This particular interview with Schwantz, which I did in 2006 on behalf of BIKE India, is super-short but I still wanted to preserve it, hence posting it here, hoping it’ll remain here forever.  

Audi Sportscar Experience @ Buddh International Circuit

Powerful, fast and reassuringly composed, the Audi R8 V10 was great fun to drive at BIC

Back in 2012, I had a chance to participate in the ‘Audi Sportscar Experience,’ hosted by Audi India at the Buddh International Circuit. This was basically an hour spent hooning around India’s only F1 circuit – what more could one possibly ask for! Here is the article I wrote back then, for Man’s World magazine.
 
‘Car number 3, you’ve turned in too early again. Don’t look down, look through the corner,’ the radio cackled, as the Audi instructor’s voice made it clear he wasn’t too happy with my driving. ‘Use all the circuit, don’t shortchange yourself while coming out corners. Anyone can press the throttle and go fast – this is not just about speed, it’s about control, it’s about finding the right lines,’ he thundered again, even as I struggled to match his pace around the 5.14km long Buddh International Circuit.

No, I hadn’t suddenly decided that I wanted to be a racing driver. I was at BIC at Audi’s invitation to be a part of their new Sportscar Experience (ASE), a programme designed for driving enthusiasts that lets them experience the sheer adrenaline rush of driving a high-performance supercar – the 525-horsepower Audi R8 V10 – around the spectacularly fast and challenging BIC. Of course, like the Audi instructor kept reminding me, the programme is not just about jumping into a car and flooring the throttle. It’s about learning from Audi’s expert instructors, understanding the intricacies of handling, steering, braking and cornering and ultimately becoming a better, faster, more skilled driver.

Book Recommendation: Taste - My Life Through Food

Stanley Tucci is a movie star who loves good food. He can act and he can write and he’s written one hell of a food-focused memoir. Taste: My Life Through Food is Tucci’s account of growing up in an Italian household (his family migrated from Italy to the US before he was born), eating hearty Italian fare cooked by his mother. As he grows up, he holds on to the love of good food and makes a conscious effort to eat well wherever he goes. Tucci has a wonderful way with words and writes with a certain flamboyance, subtly dosed with his sardonic wit and dry humour. He writes about the food he cooks and home – for his own family as well as for guests – and about a selection of great restaurants (both big and small, not necessarily expensive, often family-run) across the world, in the US, in the UK and in Europe, where he’s had some memorable meals. Those meals are described with elan – Tucci’s writing has a flair you’ll likely enjoy. In fact, if you love to eat well and like to read books that are all about food, Taste is one book you must absolutely read.  

Taste: My Life Through Food is available on Amazon   

Movie Recommendation: Long Gone Heroes

I grew up on a steady diet of 1980s-90s action movies – Rocky, Rambo, Predator, Commando, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Mad Max, Cobra, Conan the Barbarian, and a host of James Bond and Bruce Lee flicks to name a few. Big muscles, guns, knives and explosions, with a few hot chicks and some gratuitous nudity occasionally thrown in for good measure. The more spectacular and over-the-top, the better. For the most part, they don’t really make ’em like that anymore, but once in a rare while a movie like Long Gone Heroes comes along, which reminds one of the action movies of times gone by.

Starring Frank Grillo, Andy Garcia, Josh Hutcherson and Beau Knapp, the movie is about a rag-tag bunch of ex-soldiers who go to Venezuela for an ‘extraction.’ Gunner’s (played by Frank Grillo) niece has been kidnapped by the bad guys (Andy Garcia and his band of mercenaries), so Gunner gets a team together and sets off for Venezuela to bring her back. There are reasonably big biceps on display and big guns on display and those are put to good use as Gunner and his band of former soldiers ‘extract’ the niece (played by Eden Brolin) and shoot and kill aplenty to get her back home.

The performances are all okay, the dialogue is fine and the plot/story is not something you haven’t seen before. But all the action is well directed, the movie moves along a fair clip and the atmosphere is tight and terse, which is how it should be for this type of an action movie. For middle-aged gentlemen (and ladies who like a bit of violence) who might have been missing 1980s-style action movies where the hero and his men go all Rambo on the enemy, Long Gone Heroes may well be worth a watch. I certainly enjoyed it!