The HMT Colours of Pilot

The HMT Pilot Black Dial was and continues to be one of the coveted mechanical watches from the HMT stable.  I had written about my father’s 40 year-old HMT Pilot and the ‘influential’ way in which he managed to get hold of it in a previous post (http://www.jaisiri.blogspot.in/2014/10/my-fathers-hmt-pilot-black-dial-c-1973.html).  My youngest brother, Ganu, had retrieved it from my father’s old items’ box and got it serviced and gave it to me when he heard that I had got into yet another hobby.  Of course, now that I have managed to infect him a little with the HMT-watch virus, he must be regretting giving it to me.  That was a proud watch for me.  A real vintage watch.  I felt nice wearing it.  The Pilot kept going and there never seemed to enough of it going around for all those seekers.  The current Pilot models are different from the one that my father bought.  I have also mentioned the differences in that post.  I thought it would be nice to have a ‘modern’ Pilot, but I couldn’t find them anywhere in any of the showrooms and Hari said he’d try. 

My Appa's Pilot

And sometime back Hari had asked me, out of the blue actually, if I wanted a ‘White’ dial Pilot!  I didn’t know one of this kind existed, and I told Hari.  He said, this lot was custom-made-to-order and he has got a few.  I eagerly said ‘yes’ and got this ‘rare’ White Pilot . . .

The White Knight ... notice the exquisite blue hands and green dots near the 4 numerals
. . .  and the font  . . .

In the meanwhile, Shubha called and said that she had found somebody in Coimbatore who had Pilots to sell and asked me whether I wanted one.  And she got one each for us three brothers. 

The New Black-dial Pilot . . . 

And then not many months ago, the HMT website started displaying colour colour dial Pilots . . .  brownish-maroon, saffronish-red, and yellow . . . also an Arabic numerals Pilot . . . but whenever I looked, the status was always ‘stocks awaited’ . . . I too waited . . . but stocks were still ‘awaited’ . . . and then one evening, back from college, I went online and to my shock and surprise, saw that the brownish-maroon and saffronish-red Pilots had both come out of ‘stocks awaited’ to ‘stocks available’… I hesitated for a while, refreshed the page a few times, and clicked both with trembling hands . . .  

The Maroon & The Saffron . . .

I told Hari that I bought these two colour Pilots . . . and the yellow was still ‘awaited’ . . . he then gave me a valuable tip . . . I thought I’d put it to test the coming week . . . despite that, the yellow fellow kept eluding me for a long long time . . . and again, some weeks back, on a sleepless Saturday afternoon, out of sheer laziness, I visited the HMT site and saw that the yellow fellow was available along with the Arabic numerals Pilot . . . I couldn’t believe my eyes . . . I said ‘yes’ to both . . .

The Yellow Fellow . . .

The Arabic Pilot . . .

I told Hari about this and he said, people are after these colour dial Pilots now, but at one point of time these were available across the counter at all HMT showrooms and none of us bothered . . . he said, a dealer used to almost beseech me to buy the yellow Pilot . . . but see now . . . whatever pieces of Pilot they release get sold within minutes . . .  

Anyway, these are the Pilots that I have . . . 

 . . . and then he told me that HMT made seven colour dial Pilots and sent me a link . . . one for each day of the week, he said . . . wow . . . and he had all of them . . . more wow . . . so, here are all of them  . . . all these belong to Hari, including the photo . . .

I need three more colours to complete the rainbow . . . I don’t know if HMT would put them online . . . but I am hoping that they would do in the near future . . . the blue especially looks very very tempting . . .

I know this is a madcap ride . . . but can’t help it . . .