Jantar Mantar: Delhi's old timekeeper

When an Uber taxi took me to Jantar Mantar the other day, using a google map and I entered the monument after buying the entry ticket using the QR code, I could not stop wondering that how the way we measure time has changed since 1724 when this monument was built. Of course, 300 years is a long time in human history. A little online research tells me that Jantar Mantar was hailed as a scientific marvel of its time, which could be used to track local time, monitor the movement of celestial bodies and predict astronomical events for our country with precision.

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Nothing is ours on this earth except time. And the way we measure time at a certain point in our history reflects the state of progress made by our civilisation.

Little do we realise that measuring time has now become child's play when we see kids roaming around this monument on a Sunday with their smart phones and smart watches that can tell time anywhere in the world with digital precision through atomic clocks and GPS.

It's pretty hard for a 21st-century kid to believe that the huge and somewhat triangular structure here, called Samrat Yantra, was used as an equal hour sundial to indicate the time of the day by observing the shadows cast by the sun.

One can easily say the obvious: times have changed. But come to Jantar Mantar and stand in the shadows that these structures cast on a sunny day, and you would feel that ‘time’ hasn't changed, nor will it ever change – it’s just the instruments we use to measure time have changed.

Pankaj Deo, New Delhi