Bengaluru: There was a time, not so long ago, passing through Kamraj Road in Bengaluru was like time travelling a hundred years back.

The cosy little tile-roofed cottages with ornate wooden doors and windows opening to the busy road, the storied colonial mansions with an aura of uptightness that was synonymous with the colonial era and the little shops of antiquities with hand-painted sign boards that confirmed your whereabouts if you have not yet realised, all made you take a pause and wonder.

If you cared to notice, they would give you an insight into how our forefathers lived and engaged with each other. The coarse, dust-covered walls and the delicately-worn out doors and windows would give you a feel of your grandparents’ shrivelled skin, seasoned palms and greyed hair.

Their weary but warm facades give you lessons of history that the officially-sanctioned text books won’t care to narrate.

Walking along the pavements and glancing at the wares on sale at some of the shops would reconfirm your time travel, if any doubts still remained.

The journey into the past has almost come to a halt now. The morphing monster of bland modernity has caught up with Kamraj Road, except for a few vestiges of the old that give glimpses of the bygone. The glimpses are like the flashes of sepia-toned memories of your childhood or the stories that your grandparents narrated to you with so much zest and jest.

Keeping time

Among these vestiges is a charming little building, representing the pre-independence era and a portly gentleman who works there keeping time with that era.

With a tiny winder in his hands and the loupe gently placed on his right eye, Rafiq Shaikh is lost in his labour of love that even the cacophony of the Bengaluru traffic can’t easily break.

As we stood admiring his work, our earnest attempt to draw his attention proved futile. So, we decided to wait until he returns to this world from his other worldly passion. In time, he noticed us.

Not given to smile easily, a warm smile appeared on his lips when we asked him about an old clock hanging on the wall.

“That’s an eighty year old chiming clock. It is one of my favourites. There is a great pleasure working with it. It had been left unused by its owner for a long time. I just rebuilt it bit by bit. If taken good care of, it can work for many more years,” said Rafiq, with a glint of pride in his eyes.

Rafiq has been fiddling with mechanical wrist watches and wall clocks since he was seven-years-old, having learnt the art first from his uncle in Chennai and later taking up the apprenticeship with his father who ran a tiny workshop in his hometown Tirupati, a temple town in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh.

“Growing up, the only toys I had were broken wrist watches and parts of the clocks. I loved playing with these timepieces and slowly I learnt to fix them. I nev-er enjoyed going to school, fixing watches was the only thing I wanted to do and I was obsessed about it all the time. I dropped out of school after grade seven and looking at my interest and aptitude, my uncle took me under his wings and trained me. Within a couple of years I was ready to assist my father,” said Rafiq , who has been honing the art of watchmaking for 35 years.

Armed with the skill to fix any mechanical clock, Rafiq arrived in Bengaluru at the age of 25, where many expert watchmakers worked at that time.

Having arrived in Bengaluru, Rafiq made his way to Kamraj road, which at that time was a major hub for all things antique.

“It was like coming back home. I just eased into my role. Though, I had never been to this place before, I felt at home. But I can’t say the same about it now, except when I am working on the clocks,” adds Rafiq, who mends mechanical clocks even from the Victorian era.

Winding up

Like the building he works in, the 48-year-old is among the last few custodians of a time that is almost winding up!

“Most of the old masters have passed away now. Some of them are too old and their eyesight has become took weak for this strenuous job. I am among only a handful of timekeepers left in Bengaluru and it is a true honour,” said the master, who only works with mechanical clocks.

Rafiq says the pleasure of reviving the old timepieces has kept him going.

“People come to me with clocks that are as old as 150 years. Some of the pieces that come to me had been lying dead for years, with their owners having given up hope of seeing them functioning again. In most cases, the original manufacturers are defunct. So, there is no chance of finding new parts. So, I have to fabricate the broken parts. There is no higher satisfaction than seeing them get back to life. The smile that I see on people’s faces is the ultimate reward I get,” added Rafiq .

Rafiq may be running out of time, guarding a legacy that is past its prime, but he is happy to be the last sentry standing!

-- Shafaat Shahbandari is a freelance journalist and Founder-Editor of Thousand Shades of India.