Write an article about At the mall, it’s time for a family’s coming-of-age drama .Organize the content with appropriate headings and subheadings (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6), Retain any existing tags from
I went to a watch shop in a local mall recently: it was a Sunday, and it was crowded. I wanted to get the straps of a watch adjusted, which I’d given to my daughter, but for whom the straps were just too loose.
It was one of those mechanical watches with metal straps. I had earlier given it to my son, but he didn’t like it because it’s a mechanical watch that doesn’t play music and stream movies and conduct robotic surgery like his smart watch does.
My daughter, on the other hand, saw it as a piece of jewellery, and loved it.
While waiting for the job to be done, I noticed a family of what looked like two late-teen sons and a daughter of similar age with their father and mother.
They were there to buy a watch for one of the sons. The father paid for it and the son put it on while the rest of the family beamed with pride and happiness. The boy himself seemed very chill or perhaps was in what my kids used to call “control macho” mode.
Not a big deal – as if
It wasn’t a very expensive watch. I think it cost around RM350. But it must have been a big deal for this family, seeing how they were all so excited, the boy seemingly the exception.
But of course I knew he was excited too. It’s just that it’s not a manly thing to be showing excitement. He’s at the age when it’s important for him to be seen as an adult. He’d go back home, find a hidden corner and swoon over it for hours.
The womenfolk and the other son however were under no such constraints. Excitement clearly showed on their faces. I can just imagine the brother ribbing the lucky boy about this for a long while to come.
The father paid using a credit card then said he was going out to walk around while the salesman prepared the paperwork. The father was clearly in his own control macho mode, putting on airs as if he didn’t think it was a big deal either.
But he did. It looked like it was a big deal for him and the lucky boy, too, even if they tried hard not to show it. So, he and everybody else in the family played their assigned characters perfectly.
The day I got my perfect watch
I remember when my father took me to buy a watch, long ago in the late 1960s, We went to Campbell Street, a place now more famous for overpriced mamak food than for horology, just off the busy Penang Road in George Town.
My father bought me a black Seiko watch. It cost less than RM10 if I remember correctly. Back then the red RM10 note was as big and often as valuable and as hard to come by as a magic carpet.
But it wasn’t a big sum for a watch. Japanese watches weren’t quite premium items then, as with most things Japanese. The customers were kampung folk like us who couldn’t afford stuff made by the “orang putih”.
What I remember about the watch was that it was perfect, the one and only watch, whether in the shop’s display or in the entire universe, that I wanted.
I got my perfect watch. And since then, there haven’t been many opportunities for me to get exactly what I want. However nice the thing is, it’s always been a slight compromise between cost and desire, and cost often won.
No matter what I get, I know there’s something slightly out of my price range that’s just at the very least slightly better than what I settled for.
Putting on the style
Decades ago, while working in Penang, I used to buy the fake watches sold by street vendors, or once by a guy who approached me in a car park.
Those fake watches used to come in grades, with even the best grades very much within my price range. I used to wear them at work, and because I was the boss of a few people, they assumed these watches were the real thing.
Years later, close to retirement, a friend (a true watch connoisseur and collector) persuaded me to get one of those fancy Swiss watches.
He had enough cachet with the watch dealer to slip in an extra purchase that I wouldn’t have been able to do for myself, given how exclusive these things are.
The watch was truly beautiful. I tried to put it on my wrist, but the strap was too tight for my clumsy farmer’s hands.
The deal was you’re supposed to bring it back to the dealer who’d adjust the strap properly, but I never did. I always felt that I was not quite worthy of such a watch. It felt a little bit off, like something very un-Adzharish.
Getting real fancy
My friend noticed my discomfort and sold me another watch from his collection. It’s still a fancy watch, just nowhere near the class of the first watch. I wear it often, especially when I need to look at least slightly decent.
I told another friend how I used to wear fake watches and people used to think they were genuine because of the job I held.
She laughed and said now that my reputation for being stingy and miserly is firmly entrenched, even if I were to wear the real thing many would still think I must be wearing a fake!
I sold the fancy watch, still unworn, to another friend, somebody for whom even that “fancy” watch would be seen by many as being beneath his station. But he alternates wearing it with his sons, and that makes my heart warm and glad indeed.
Nowadays I often wear an old Seiko, the type they call a beater watch, presumably because you batter and beat it and do not think or care too much about it.
It tells the time with reasonable accuracy, though I shouldn’t hope to navigate the oceans with it. It certainly can’t stream movies or do robotic surgery, but it is good enough.
Getting what you desire
The thing is, we seldom get what our heart truly desires, regardless of what money we have, and however we spend it.
The big house or car or watch that we bought – there’s always one slightly better or more desirable or coveted.
In a way, that’s a good thing. That disappointment motivates many people to work harder to be able to afford their dream stuff. That certainly makes the world go round.
But we also see how such desires, often driven by greed and insecurity, can harm so much – our own lives, those of our loved ones, other fellow human beings and often the earth itself.
Memories are made of this
Anyway, I got the straps of my watch worked on by a very nice young man who didn’t charge me anything.
Meanwhile, back at the mall, the family was still there, the lucky boy looking nonchalant while his family fussed over him while the father was outside, peering into the display windows of a nearby shop, looking seemingly unconcerned.
But the purchase must have been a big deal for him, and I’m sure for the boy and the whole family too. May they remember this moment for a long time, and savour it whenever they recall it.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
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