Most precious material possession

We all have things in our possession that are dear to us. There could be a myriad reasons for them to be close to our heart....some of those things might have sentimental value, some might remind us of a moment in our life that we cherish, some others might give us a sense of achievement/ success, while yet others might have been handed over to us through our families, to name a few reasons.

In my case, the material possession I cherish the most is a watch...a Swiss Aspen watch to be precise. It is now a decade old (pic attached). Below is a brief background of my tryst with it.

While I was working in a Cash Management Product Development role at IndusInd Bank in India, there used to be a monthly magazine called 'CCBG snippets' (it could still be around :)). The magazine used to recognise key achievements in Corporate and Commercial Banking Group (CCBG) of the bank. As we were part of Transaction Banking Group that used to work on solutioning deals/ mandates for CCBG, the magazine presented us with an opportunity to get recognised for our key contributions. My name had figured in the magazine a few times for some Cash Management mandates/ solutions that I had structured for CCBG. We used to get vouchers as reward, if our name appeared in the magazine.

As I had a keen interest in watches (just as we have philately for stamp collectors, numismatics for coin collectors, we have 'horology' for watch collectors/ connoisseurs....search for Auro Montanari on google. While I don't have any aspirations to challenge him, I hope to get time to expand my collection of time - pieces, but that's for another time), I decided to combine a few vouchers and see where those could lead me to. At Shoppers Stop in Mumbai, I came across this new model of Aspen and it was 'love at first sight'. Luckily for me, the grand bill of Rs 10,000 (a princely sum a decade back in India for a watch) was covered through the vouchers alone.

Times changed and by God's grace, I was able to place another time - piece next to this one in my drawer....a more expensive one. However, the first love hasn't got tempered by vagaries of time. It keeps reminding me of the weeks (months at times) spent in structuring solutions with Corporate/ FI clients, CMS Operations team, CMS Sales team, IT team and other internal teams at that bank. Of course, there is a sense of gratitude for having been recognised for my efforts at that time.

I would like to conclude this post with a quote from evolutionary psychiatrist Gad Saad:

'People's most prized possessions carry deeply symbolic and emotional significance'.

Which is your most precious material possession and why?

#gratitude #recognition #cashmanagement #transactionbanking #productmanagement #reflections #weekendmotivation #onwardsandupwards