The Montres Edouard Lauzières Express Arrives at Its Final Station

Security is too tight too mention. The police had arrested a home-grown, suspected terrorist named Muhammed Ghouse just days earlier. We all had to pass the metal detectors when going in and out of the hall. Mr. Ghouse had promised to strike on targets like shows and not all of associaties are behind bars yet.









Some impressions of what an average Sunday at an average Indian watch fair looks like.



This is what they call a booth with no visitors over here.


John being overrun by the sheer number of visitors to our booth. Our security detail had to save him more than once from being dragged to the ground. The visitors just waltz and tango mercilessly.



John, our trusted driver, handing out leaflets and brochures to the visitors enjoying a rare moment of calm. Without him we would not have survived. Thank you for everything, John.



Yours truly explaining the ins-and-outs of hand-milled cases, hand-guilloched dials, the special features of high-density rotors and temperature blued screws to an interested visitor.



The Montres Edouard Lauzières very own security details.


Titan Watches' signature lady feeling slightly overwhelmed. She later came over sitting next to me claiming that this was the only safe spot on the show. I still wonder why Eve stood her ground of not wanting to take a picture of her sitting next to me!



Here is Nazir, the proud owner of the first Montres Edouard Lauzières watch in India. He came specially to the show again right before closing on Sunday to get his new watch polished once more before we leave!



So what's that fuss about insurance for such a tiny cargo?


Speed packaging à l'indienne


Mihir Kharod, Samaya Bharati's cheeful organiser making his farewell address.


Dear Friends,

Sunday was the toughest day in my life. I never had a tougher day even during my time in the Army during survival training weeks. We had 55,000 visitors 'rolling' over our booth! The masses had to be controlled by two security guards and our trusted soldier. I never have seen such a thing in all my life and I doubt that I will ever see it again.

It started all around 11.00 am to reach its peak around 5.30 pm. John, our trusted driver was exhausted after having handed out leaflets and brochures from 10.00 am til 8.00 pm when the last visitor had happily left the venue. Oh just for the record, the show was supposed to close at 7.00 pm and there was no means of getting the people out earlier than 8.00 pm such tightly packed were the booths and alleys at 7.00 pm still.

I was forced to sit in a corner at the booth and resigned to serving two people at the same time. I do not know how many hands have touched the hand-out pieces but the special pink-colored watch polishing cloths were pitch-dark at the end of the show and I had to throw them away. I consumed four of these cloths. Two of them on Sunday alone.

As there were way too many people I sold two watches only. There was no way to take the time out to count the money in the middle of these masses of people. People here pay with wads of cash mostly bills of 100 rupies. So there is a lot of counting going at the prices our watches go for.

Today I will have the visit of the driver of the State Bank of India's local Vice President to pick up a watch at the hotel. He fell in love with a quartz watch with a yellow sunburst dial and simply got washed out of the stand by the masses. We were just able to get the name of our hotel, the venerable St. Marks Hotel across to each other and his calling out in impeccable Oxford English 'I will send my driver at 10.00 am tomorrow morning with the money to pick-up my watch. Please do not sell it to anyone else' and swept off he was. The one-way system insisted on by the local police proved to be the only thing preventing the booths from getting crushed.

At 8.00 pm we finally started disassembling the displays and packing the watches into their special transport cases to ship them back to Switzerland via Abu Dhabi. We were all more than just exhausted and it had to be completed rapidly. By 10.30 pm we were supposed to have the entire booth dismantled. Raju Agarwal from Meroform India (I can only recommend him to anyone ever wanting to have a booth done in India or the UAE) and his team worked miracles. By 10.00 pm sharp our booth was totally dismantled and stowed on the truck! No mean feat as there were hundreds and hundreds of workes dismantling booths at the same time in this small hall.

At 10.00 pm Mihir Kharod the chief organiser of Samaya Bharati (That's Hindi for Watch Fair as far as I have understood) gave a rousing farewell speach outside of the hall in open air. As is customary in India and the Middle East there were other speakers too and the closing ceremony took nearly as long as the opening one that took close to 90 minutes. I have never seen such a happy and merry closing like the one of the 14th Samaya Bharati. Exhibitors who are after all competitors to what amounts to the world's biggest and most cut-throat market for watches and clocks falling into each others arms and wishing each other farewell and all the best. It had more of a happy family's saying good bye after a merry get-together than of the saying good-bye amongst friends at a trade show. Mihir Kharod is indeed the knitting-factor number one in this industry. He succeeded in commercial foes turning into life-long friends marching for the common goal: bringing affordable and well-designed watches to the Indian consumers.

The outcome for us is a positive one too. We have not only made many friends in the industry in India but learned that our watches are simply loved by the Indian consumers. I was right in insisting on brighter colors and shiny hues for the dials. Nicola's insistence on quartz watches in the same cases as the mechanical ones proved to be the right one too. Now the 'real' work starts. Bringing the many discussions with potentail distributors we had to a good end. Most of them we will meet with during Baselworld in April again. And I am confident that we will be able to appoint a distributor for India by the end of June 2008 and that we will be at the 15th Samaya Bharati in 2010 in Bombay as a member of the Indian watch family spawned of Mihir Kharod's and his son Hemal Kharods' never tireing efforts.

Later in the day we shall catch our plane back to Dubai and from there on a driver will take us to Abu Dhabi to the Emirates Palace where we will have meetings with our retailers and a few days of rest. Rest that is above all well-earned by Eve.