So says Harman Wadhwa when asked what justifies the price of a Richard Mille. In a Delhi workshop, that modest answer becomes the thesis of an afternoon among three extraordinary machines.

At The Repair Hub, the Swiss-trained watchmaker, schooled at the K&H Watchmaking Competence Centre in Le Locle, opens an RM 023, a rare platinum Vacheron Constantin Ultra-Thin and an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph. He invites us to look past the dial and into the soul of mechanical time.

Begin with the RM 023, valued at roughly Rs 1.2 crore. Its crown turns with a silkiness that suggests a fresh service, yet it has gone ten years without one. Beneath the numerals lies a sheet of sapphire so clear the eye passes straight through it. Lift the case back and the artistry multiplies with a rotor of white-gold ribs that can be repositioned to suit the wearer’s lifestyle, a tungsten-alloy weight at its rim, ceramic bearings at its heart.

Even the date, as it leaps at midnight, borrows its burst of energy from the winding springs. One careless slip would leave a permanent mark on white gold. Harman’s grip, learned in Switzerland, ensures it never does.

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Then comes the great riddle, why does a spring bent on unwinding not simply race to empty? Harman lifts away the pallet fork, and the train runs at once. “The power has been released,” he says. The ruby-tipped fork, answering the pulse of a balance and hairspring, had been rationing that energy all along, one beat at a time.

The Vacheron Constantin Ultra-Thin, ref. 34070, hand-wound Calibre 1160 measures a mere 1.2 millimetres, so slender that “you don’t see it.” Descended from Jean Lassale’s Calibre 1200, whose miniature ball bearings freed wheels from the tyranny of bridges, it hides a balance with one spoke stepped down so a neighbouring part may sit lower. That tiny concession spares 0.15 millimetre, and decades later it still thrills Harman. Yet this masterpiece carries a mark left by careless hands in a previous workshop. “I know the customer is not going to see that scratch,” he says. “But still. Why?”

Finally, the Royal Oak Offshore arrives with steel to spare, a 2018 re-edition of the 1993 original nicknamed “the Beast.” Its Calibre 3126/3840, built from 365 components and 7.16 millimetres thick, conceals a Dubois Dépraz module beneath the dial. To reveal the choreography, Harman brings out an exposed Valjoux 7750. One press engages the chronograph wheels, another halts them while time marches on, and a reset sends tiny hammers against heart-shaped cams, returning every indication to zero.

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Three watches, yet behind every beautiful face is a spring straining to be free, and a craftsman who cares about a scratch no customer will ever see.