Time is ticking

As the New Year 2023 approaches, I remember a Bengali poem read in my childhood, “Time flows like a river, whoever does not understand this is a fool….” The reference to time made me recall clocks with great historical significance in West Bengal. Needless to mention that the concept of following a standardised time in entire India was introduced to commoners by our colonial ruler. Indians had different system before; whereas court astronomers helped kings and merchants to calculate time using sundials and astronomical knowledge, common people used their traditional knowledge of watching sun or stars to guess time.  In the 18th/19^th century, buildings were being constructed following British architectural style. Clock towers replicating those in London also became fashionable. Big mechanical clocks were imported from England and were installed on the buildings like British towers and castles. 

One of those sits on the turret of the General Post Office, a building constructed in 1864. Another remarkable one is seen in Kolkata’s only Scottish church, St. Andrews church in Lal Bazar area, established in the year 1818. The clock was designed by M/S. There is no Kolkata native who cannot remember the clock in the gorgeous clock tower of St. Paul’s Cathedral which was established in 1839 and became fully functional from 1847.  Every history enthusiast of the city would remember the Pathuriaghata Tagore castle’s clock tower built by Mackintosh Burn in 1895 and the Hog Market’s (present New Market) clock tower installed in1930. The later one came from Huddersfield. There are several more found in Northern and central part of the city. But I find two of them extraordinary – the first one due to its association with millions of commuters in East Indian’s largest Rail station and the second one, due to its font.

Howrah Platform clock

About six hundred passenger trains arrive and start from Howrah station, the oldest railway station of Eastern India every day. The first locomotive started from this station in 1854 and the clock came in 1926. People who commute through this station know this clock well. They use it as landmark. Even ninety-six years after its installation, if you stand below the clock any fine day, you will hear people around you direct over their mobile phones, “Come down; I am standing near the big clock.” This engineering wonder of the colonial era, like many others create new dimension while we revisit British era in India. 

Renowned industrial clock maker Gent & Co Ltd which is also called Gents of Leicester was given the task of making the clock for the largest railway station. On arrival it was fitted on a heavy iron frame to set on the wall outside station manager’s room. It has two faces looking at two sets of platforms. The clock shows exact time till date, so perfect that people set time of own watches matching with this. In last few decades, technical changes have been made to keep it running. It needed to be winded at regular intervals in the beginning. Then a tele controller pulsar device was used to move its hands. Later in 1975 an electro-mechanical system was introduced to turn its keys. Since then, it runs with the help of rechargeable battery and does not need to be winded any longer.

In the Bowbazar sweetshop

When we remember traditional sweetmeats in Kolkata, we remember Bhimnag. The Bowbazar shop was opened in 1826 by Paran Chandra Nag. Since the beginning, Sandesh, a special type of cottage cheese sweet prepared in this shop became famous, and the shop became frequented by Kolkata Babus, rich and famous Bengalis as well as British administrators. By 1856 they created a sweet called Ladikeni to honour of the new Viceroy Lord Charles Canning’s wife Lady Charlotte Canning. She liked the soft juicy preparation, also the Bengali sweet lovers. By 1858, the British clock merchant Cooke and Kelvey set up their store in Calcutta. The store near Writer’s Building inspired my awe even in 1990s while I had to cross to area to reach my school and later college. Is the store still there? I do not know. However, in the same year, Thomas Cooke paid a visit to the famous Bhimnag. He relished the sweets there but a 30-year-old popular sweet shop’s having no clock on their wall astonished them. Upon his query, the shop owner informed him that a clock is of no use to him while his workers were unable to read English numerals. Thomas Cooke noted the point in no time and sent a special request with sample of Bengali alphabets to his London factory. A British factory worker painted Bengali letters instead of English on one of their clocks which Cooke and Kelvey later gifted to Bhim Nag. The symbol of friendship between the Bengali sweet maker and the British clockmaker is found ticking in the same shop even after 164 years.  

 

If you visit Calcutta, you may dedicate some of your time in discovering these over hundred-year-old yet running clocks in the city. Each one is amazing and has some story associated.