Bombay Watch Co: A one-stop shop for horology lovers in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Unlike bigger cities like Bombay, where can hunt in areas like Chor Bazar and find local vintage watch repair stores or dealers, the same cannot be said for our city here. Even the online market space for horology lovers is filled sellers from other cities.
Finding something similar in Hyderabad turned out to be rather difficult. While one can always go to the known stores like Kamal Watch or Ramesh Watch (or any of the bigger stores on the Abids road), it took me a few weeks after a lot of searching to finally find what I was looking for.
In fact, it dawned on me to ask the owner of Mahbub Radio in the Old City if he knew any of the old watch experts. After all, the Chatta Bazar area also at one point of time had close to a dozen watch stores (most of which except ones like Mahmood Watch have shut however.
Vintage watches at Bombay Watch Co. (Image: Yunus Y. Lasania) Enter Bombay Watch Co, a 55-year-old watch service store that can pretty much fix anything and everything to do with horology. Run by Mohd Abdul Kareem Khan, who is over 60 years old, the shop, is one of the few places in Hyderabad that also sells vintage watches.
Also Read Running for 70 years, Hyderabad’s Mahboob Radio Service still thrives in digital age From old models of Favre Leuba to the now in demand HMT mechanical models, Bombay Watch Co has everything. When I visited the store a few weeks ago, I spotted different models of old watches ranging from Tissot to Henry Sandoz. While one can look at the many online sellers, going to a watch store and geeking out over these old time pieces is a very different experience.  Store owner Kareem with his son. (Image: Siasat) “I had gone to Bombay and worked there for two years in my youth to learn how to repair and service watches. I learnt my craft in Bhendi Bazar. I came back around 1976 and then set up my shop here. We fix everything. You can get us any watch or clock and we can repair it,” said Kareem Khan. Today he runs Bombay Watch with one of his sons Mohd Rizwan Khan (26).