Meet the timekeepers of Chennai’s historic clock towers

Discover the history and dedication behind Chennai's iconic clock towers, preserved by meticulous technicians for generations.

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.

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, are vigilant about the clocks’ every movement and their meticulous history. Meet the timekeepers of Chennai.