Laxman Chugani has travelled across the world to explore about watches and to keep up with new trends in business. — Photo: Surya Sridhar
Hyderabad: His passion and love for watches took him to heights that few in the profession have reached and gave him a unique identity.
Back in the late 50s and till the early 90s, there was only one major watch store that used to have a sales and service centre in the city and that was G D Chugani’s Ramesh Watch Company, Ramesh Watch Co,. in short. From Chugani, Laxman Chugani took over and now, Chugani then the only man in Telangana who could repair Swiss Watches, still remains among the very few who can.
To keep up with new trends in the business, Laxman Chugani has visited different places to explore more about watches.
“I have travelled to different countries. Everywhere, all the time, my eye goes to the watches and I pick up the most interesting one,” he says. “In my childhood, I use to sit in the store after school and I used to go with my father for collecting clocks as well. I concentrated more on clocks, which inspired me to take a course on the same in Bengaluru,” says Laxman.
After the course, he moved to Switzerland for another three months. “I used to work in a company there to learn everything. The watches there are amazing and the working style is completely different. Swiss-made watches are of better quality because of the standard of their mechanism,” he says.
“On the last day of my course in Switzerland, they dismantled the clock and asked me to assemble it from scratch. I finished it quickly and showed them. That gave me immense confidence,” Laxman recalls. “We were the only one in the city who brought all international brands on to one platform. Celebrities use to visit our store and we had a special department only for service. I was the only one who learned to repair Swiss watches. Even now I send my workers to Switzerland to learn so that we can give better service to customers,” he adds.
“We have made several big clocks, including the one at Secunderabad Clock Tower. Six people worked to fix the clock together. It was a risky task to climb the walls and fix the clock which looks just like a watch but there was so much of hard work behind it,” he recalls.
Laxman Chugani travels to different places to fix clocks and has fixed big timepieces in Nizamabad, Warangal, Uppal and several historical places in the city itself. “We are currently working on the James Street Police Station clock. It is a proud moment for us to work on such a big project,” he concludes.
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