An advertisement by Cook’s Travel Services from August 1940 in Walkabout (an erstwhile Australian illustrated magazine) summarises the Madras of yore through a simple black and white picture.
It uses a picture of the Madras Central Railway Station as the gateway to a nation at the precipice of its mutinous, hard-fought freedom.
Within the printed borders of the ad, one finds a tram in motion, at the busy Park Town intersection. A horse-drawn carriage trudges past people. Kerosene lamps twinkle. Most importantly though, the remarkable railway station with its defining white Travancore-cap clock tower, stands tall at 135 feet amidst a cotton-ball sky.
For years now, this very image of the Central railway station has been used in Tamil literature and cinema to depict the transition of a changing landscape. The Park Town intersection is far more chaotic today. The four platforms built in 1873 have now become 17. Buses, bikes and busy travellers have found ways to occupy every inch of the street outside the station. The newly christened name takes thrice as long to say.
And, the advent of time on watches and phones, has made clock towers entirely antiquated.
Syed Feroz winding the clock at Central station | Photo Credit: Thamodharan B
However, up in the tallest tower of the building, amidst thousands of stuffy pigeon feathers and lace-like spider webs, the chaos of the outside world pauses. Technician Syed Nazir sets about winding a Gillett & Bland mechanical clock from the 1870s that still runs. from the tallest spot in the railway station “This is from London. The British brought it here. Do you know what a striking clock is? When it was first set up, it is said that one could hear the chime every hour all the way till Chintadripet but the sound has become defunct now. It is still a wonderful clock though, full of history. Just look at how she runs,” Syed says over the rhythmic tick.
There are only two people in Chennai — Syed Feroz and S. Anthony — entrusted with the keys to the city’s oldest, most prized clock towers of today. Fitted with mechanical clocks that are barely in production in India, a simple wrong twist of a screw or a missing cog, would mean that time would effectively stand still at these locations. These custodians. However, they are vigilant about the clocks’ every movement and their meticulous history. Meet the timekeepers of Chennai.
A mile, a minute
Fifty-one-year-old Syed’s tryst with timepieces, began at home. “My father helped fix the clocks in the Nawab of Arcot’s house,” he claims proudly. Syed says that he was never truly interested in academics and moved to taking care of the business by the time he was 15.
“I worked as an apprentice with SA Rahim who was often contracted by the Greater Chennai Corporation to fix, wind and upkeep the clocks under the purview of the department. I assisted him for 10 years and eventually branched out on my own,” he says, walking around broken bird eggs and rat tails, at the Chennai Central clock tower.
S Anthony checking the status of the Royapettah clock tower | Photo Credit: S Shiva Raj
Syed’s mornings begin at 5am with phone calls from various officers of the Corporation and the Southern Railways, alerting him about time-bound quick-fixes of the clock as he is a contracted employee now. He maintains a roster to attend to the clocks at the Ripon Buildings, St Mary’s Church at Fort St George, St George’s Cathedral and a clock at the neighbouring U.S. Consulate.
Syed has mastered the weigh-drive mechanism that defines colonial clocks from the late 19th and early 20th Century. Here, six iron plates are tied to a metal rope and connected to a chain of wheels. They are suspended below the clock’s main movement. As the wheels rotate every passing minute, the iron plates unwind, moving towards the floor. A brass pointer on the dial of the clock moves too. Usually, over a week’s time, the suspended plates plates slowly descend as the wheels rotate. Once the plates hit the floor, the clock stops working.
Syed winding the 111-year-old clock at Ripon buildings | Photo Credit: Thamodharan B
Technicians must wind this clock back at least once a week from the floor to ensure that the plates are suspended at the top once again so that the clock continues ticking. This means that Syed works through the week and allocates a specific day to the clocks he winds. “Over the last 40 years, I have repaired and wound clocks while wading through knee-deep water inside clock towers and also through the COVID years where nearly no vehicles plied. People are sensitive about clocks running on time. Rain or shine, it must tick,” he says.
Syed says that the 111-year-old clock at the Ripon buildings (headquarter of the Greater Chennai Corporation) is his favourite in the city. Until earlier this week, the clock’s sonorous, pulsating strike of the five bells in the clock tower, would reverberate all through the Corporation building, leaving birds flying. It is currently being repaired. All the parts have been replaced in this and other clocks in the city, due to use over the years. Syed has fashioned spare parts by seeing, observing and fiddling with the mechanism over the years.
A view of the Central Railway Station as it looked in the 1920s. | Photo Credit: HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES
Syed says that he and his wife Ayesha Nazeer, have cut pieces of plastic that have been fitted on the four dials we see today at both the Central Station and Ripon. Thirty six pieces went into replacing each of the glass faces of the eight metre dials from the early 1900s, that we see from outside. “Plastic is easier to deal with because of the weather. Before phones, Ayesha and I used to use walkie-talkies. She would stand on the road and tell me if the hands are in the right position as I would adjust it from inside the tower,” he says.
A recent health setback has proven to Syed that he needs a protege to ensure that people can keep time whether or not he is around. It is why he is grooming S Imran Khan to take over. It is the only way to protect these markers of history. “Not many people are interested because it is a lot of hard work but somebody has got to do it,” Syed says.
S Antony concurs with Syed. Speaking as he winds the Royapettah clock tower, in his blue shirt drenched in sweat, this technician from P Orr & Sons who has been involved in fixing clock towers for 10 years now, says that few people are interested in the job as it could sometimes mean life or death.
Royapettah clock tower, an art deco building | Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives
“The Fyson clock (unveiled in 1940) at Presidency College has a narrow entryway to the top. The first time we went, it was concerning to go all the way to the top because of the dust, the lack of light, the rickety ladder up and placement of the mechanism itself. It was hard to breathe,” he says.
Although he has worked on clocks only for a decade, he has four decades of experience fixing watches. Antony says that the favourite part of the job is ‘figuring it out’. He adds that he can find out what is wrong with a clock by merely hearing it tick.
As he opens the gate and climbs up the Royapettah clock tower, a 1940s Art Deco marvel, contrasting the brash newness of the Express Avenue mall, a traffic constable who has been on duty in the area, says that he would like to join him. “I have been working in the area for decades but have never climbed the top,” he says. In minutes, he slips out too. “I don’t know how he stays here for hours,” the police personnel says, fanning himself.
“This clock existed before me. It must exist after me too. That is why I do this,” he says. “That, and the view. Where else can you see Chennai like this?”
Madras minutes
Published - August 29, 2024 08:02 am IST
