The allure of the clock tower

THOUGH a big headache, house renovation invariably pays rich dividends. During this strenuous exercise, which stretches for weeks and even months, lost things are traced and there are quite a few surprises. The latest such venture led to the rediscovery of my ‘birth horoscope’, which was prepared by an astrologer more than 70 years ago and was untraced for the past five decades.

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Amazingly, the writing in Devanagari on the florally decorated paper of the janampatri was still readable. My quoted date of birth was correct, but the mention of the time of birth (8.10 am) baffled me. In those times, childbirth used to be strictly a home affair and ‘timepieces’ and clocks had not made their appearance in most households. The only way to know the time was to go by the hourly chime of the lone clock tower of the town.

Keen to solve the mystery, I contacted my cousin, who is 11 years older than me. He narrated an interesting incident. Immediately after my birth, my elder brother ran fast to a neighbourhood, which had one small timepiece to cater to a cluster of more than 50 houses. My brother returned at an equally fast pace. The time reported by him was 8.14 am. Women of the house subtracted four minutes — the time taken to reach the neighbourhood — to determine the exact time of my birth.

Timepieces and wall clocks became commonplace in homes much later. In high school, not even one out of more than a thousand students could afford a wrist watch. Strange but true, college-going students rarely sported wrist watches till the mid-1960s. During my childhood, I was mesmerised by a toy wrist watch which cost 2 annas (12 paisa). The query ‘kya bajaa hai’ (what’s the time?) was commonly heard on the street. The bulk manufacturing of HMT watches started in the 1960s, when its affordable model HMT Janata appeared in the market, costing Rs 80. The upmarket HMT Pilot with a black dial had a minimum waiting period of six months for potential buyers.

With the passage of time, clock towers have made way for fancy wall clocks and watches. Our busy young executives have started taming time by working on ‘time management’. But people of my generation miss the hourly chime of the clock tower and the resonance of ‘kya bajaa hai’. The harsh reality is that people value time today but seldom have time for others.