Time For Poetry

Pascal Raffy on his love affair with the 202-year-old house of Bovet.

- Haziq Yusof

ANY WRITER WORTH their salt spends years, even decades, honing their interviewing skills. From carefully crafting questions and building rapport to listening actively, the entire process must be finely tuned to elicit truths and nuances from even the most guarded of interviewees. Then there are the interviewees who are unabashedly open, so much so they make the hours of meticulous preparation seem almost unnecessary. With these individuals, all one needs to do is be curious and listen.

Pascal Raffy, the owner of the house of Bovet, is one such individual. What had begun as a conversation about Bovet and the art of watchmaking quickly spun into a discussion of life, poetry and the romance of it all.

“You are very rich if you have five true friends,” says Raffy, as he pivots from an explanation of Bovet’s heritage into a discussion of friendship and arithmetic.