What watching Made in India: The Titan Story made me feel about my Omega and RADO
Let's start with an honest review of Made in India: The Titan Story. For the uninitiated, the si part series traces the birth of Titan
Let's start with an honest review of Made in India: The Titan Story. For the uninitiated, the si part series traces the birth of Titan Watches — the vision, the setbacks, the scepticism and the relentless pursuit of building a world-class Indian watch brand. What may seem like a straightforward business success story quickly reveals itself to be something much bigger: a story about ambition, resilience, national pride and the stubborn belief that India could build products that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the best in the world. Read Full Story At the centre of it all is Jim Sarbh as Xerxes Desai, the visionary widely regarded as the architect of Titan, and the larger-than-life presence Naseeruddin Shah as JRD Tata, who refused to accept that India was destined to merely consume what the world produced. The series captures the triumphs, frustrations, failures and sacrifices that went into building Titan. By the time the credits roll, it becomes difficult not to feel emotionally invested in the journey. Naseeruddin Shah (L) and Jim Sarbh (R) in a still from Made in India: A Titan Story. (Credit: MX Player) And it is not every day that a show makes you sit down and question your own aspirations. It took six episodes for me to revisit a bias I didn't even realise I carried. One particular scene stayed with me long after I finished watching. JRD Tata meets renowned Swiss watchmaker Andre Juba’s son in the hope of building world-class watches in India, in other words, collaborate with them. His response was dismissive.
Indians, he suggests, are labourers, not watchmakers. They lack the expertise and craftsmanship needed to build something that could rival Swiss horology. Perhaps it was the writing. Perhaps it was the performances. But that rejection felt personal. Not because I have ever made a watch, but because I recognised a version of myself in that prejudice. For years, I have admired watches. Like many Indians who grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s, Seiko, Citizen, Rado, Omega, these were not just watches. They were milestones. Symbols that you had worked hard enough, earned enough and finally arrived. These were aspiration strapped to your wrist. And somewhere along the way, many (including me) started believing that aspiration had to come with a foreign label. Watching The Titan Story burst that bubble. Because there was a time when Titan itself represented aspiration. Before smartwatches, before luxury watch influencers and before social media turned Swiss watches into status symbols, Titan was often the most prized possession in an Indian household. It was gifted at graduations, promotions, retirements and weddings. A Titan watch marked occasions. It celebrated milestones. Even before Titan came along, there was HMT — a watch brand that quietly sat on the wrists of teachers, government employees, fathers and grandfathers across India. HMT wasn't glamorous, more of a utility watch. Most importantly, it used manual mechanical mechanism. Titan gave way to a more advanced quartz movement. It made watches fashionable. It made them aspirational. It made Indians believe that something designed and manufactured here could be desirable. That is what the series reminded me of.
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