Time doesn't stop

Almost a century old, my grandfather’s clock ticks on tirelessly

This is the story of a clock. A real grandfather clock. Not the big, tall, and exotic ones that are referred to as grandfather clocks. This one actually belonged to my maternal grandfather.

I grew up in Delhi. But every alternate summer, we would vacation in Bengaluru and stay at my grandparents’ home in VV Puram. There was a long hall where, every night, several mattresses would be rolled out for the younger ones to sleep on.

I was fascinated by a clock that was fixed to the wall. It was mesmerising to see the metronome-like movement of the pendulum. That was before, of course, when I learned about all that in high school physics. During the night, when the gong would sound every hour, I would be so scared that I would crawl further and hide under the blanket.

After my grandfather passed away, the house had to be given up. Our vacations to Bengaluru, too, were reduced. Memories of that house began to fade, overshadowed by the activities of my teen years.

Cut to 1988. For a few years, my grandmother lived with my parents in Mysore and then moved to another aunt’s house. Dementia had also set in, so any conversation with her was fraught with confusion. After her death, we found some of her belongings under a cot in my parents’ home. Most of them were of no use to us. The clock was there. In a shabby condition. None of my brothers were interested in that. But to me, it was like a connection with my childhood. Instead of throwing it away, I decided to keep it.

Back home in Bengaluru, it was relegated to storage in the loft. But the cosmic connection came to the fore. One day I took out the clock, dusted it, and took it to Commercial Street. One of the large watch shops agreed to repair it. It cost me Rs 1,200, a considerable sum in those days. It worked fine and looked right at home on our living room wall. Later, it moved with us to Hyderabad, where I once again got it serviced after a few years.

Now it is back in Bengaluru. Once a week, I wind it. It is working like clockwork! For some reason, I never explored its background.

Last week, I did some historical research on the origin of the clock. It is a Seikosha from Japan. It must be pre-1924, as the company changed its name to Seiko in that year. It makes my clock 99 years old, at least.

And now the gong in the middle of the night no longer scares me.