The clock tower at the Padmanabhapuram Palace in Thuckalay has begun chiming for the first time in nearly four decades.
“The naazhikamani (as the clock tower is called) had been defunct for 37 years. Repairing it took a lot of hard work,” said Kadannappally Ramachandran, Minister for Museums, Archaeology and Archives, who formally inaugurated the renovated clock at the palace on Thursday morning.
Royal connection
A former seat of the Travancore kings, the 16th century palace and its grounds, though situated in Tamil Nadu, are owned by the Kerala government and managed by the Archaeology Department of Kerala.
The department had tried, in vain, to get the ‘striking clock’ repaired on a number of occasions. More recently, the department had hired Chennai-based PR Clock Repairs, which managed to get the naazhikamani working in just two weeks, Ajith Kumar, charge officer, Padmanabhapuram Palace, said.
“Now it chimes every hour, with the number of chimes corresponding to the hour. The volume is a bit on the lower side now, but it is said that in the old days, the bell could be heard for 2 km around the palace,” Mr. Ajith Kumar said. The clock has a complicated mechanism and the bell sounds when a hammer falls on it. It has to be manually wound once a week.
Nobody is quite sure how old the naazhikamani is, and according to Mr. Ajith Kumar, there are two stories doing the rounds regarding its origin: one, that it was manufactured locally, and, two, that it was imported from Germany. The department is now trying to work out an arrangement where visitors can view the clock mechanism.
On Thursday, the Archaeology Minister also inaugurated the restored sections of the old palace.
