In the animated film The Clock Tower made by Cara Antonelli, a beautiful ballerina is cursed by a witch and imprisoned on the top floor of a clock tower in the centre of a panoramic village. To keep the clocks working, the belle is kept under a spell to perpetually spin on her toes to wind the gears and sprockets of the clock. Round and round she goes, day and night to keep the arms of the clock ticking and its bells chiming hour after hour.
From the clock tower window the girl can see the beautiful town spread around with colourful balloons flying in the air. One day she decides to step out and see the town. As she stops dancing, the clocks stop. On stepping out, she notices that the town has changed. It is a colourless ghost town and everything in it is the shade of grey or black, and not what she had seen from the tower. With no one around, the town was eerily silent. Disappointed, the little girl walks back to the tower.
On the way, as she touches a balloon string, she notices that the balloon turns crimson on her touch. When she touches a burnt plant, colourful flowers bloom on it. She realises that to bring life back to the town she must keep the clocks working. The young ballerina is heartbroken and goes back into the tower to resume her dance and watches the town come back to life.
Watching this heartbreaking fairytale, one wonders if clock towers were ever the life centre of a town in the times gone by and how these towers came to occupy the central place in a town and literally achieved such heights. Time personifies life. A dead clock is a bad omen; it means stagnation, end of life force, death. Though the city of Delhi didn’t have its fair share of clock towers, like other prominent cities of the world, I decided to check on the ones we have or had.
A history of time-keeping
In Sanskrit, time is referred as kaal. In the Hindu pantheon time or samay is an avatar of Shiva and it also means death, as time personifies annihilation of everything that is or was. Civilisationally, Indians didn’t build clock towers at all, either for religious or practical purposes. The Hindi word ghadi, ghari or ghuree which we refer to as a watch or clock, is actually a measure or unit of time. A ghari by the ancient Indian system of timekeeping was of 24 minutes. By that measure, there are 60 gharis in a day and night.
As he explored Hindustan, the first Mughal Emperor Zahiruddin Mohammad Babur (1483-1530) noticed, according to is memoir Baburnama, “…the town people here employ a timekeeper called ghariyalli, who sounds a large brass plate bell hanging at a high place in the centre of the town to mark each pahar of the day. A day and night have four pahars each. The ghariyalli’s used a water timepiece, a clepsydra, to measure and announce a ghari.”
The first city clock tower was built in the heart of Shahjehanabad (Delhi) in the 1870s, much before the British had thought of moving the capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi. In their hearts they knew that the real capital of India was the Mughal capital of Delhi. With its iconic appearance and design, the Clock Tower in Delhi stood tall for nearly 80 years in the centre of the world-famous Mughal city, which had recently been usurped by the British from the last Mughal Emperor Bahadurshah Zafar. It was one of the first clock towers built in India.
The Ghantaghar and tram lines in Delhi. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Around the time when this popular landmark called Ghanta Ghar in Chandni Chowk partially collapsed in 1950, as if to compensate for its loss, another Clock Tower with a new settlement called Hari Nagar was coming up in west Delhi.
There were three well-known clock towers in Delhi at that time and two relatively lesser known ones. The oldest was in Chandni Chowk, built by the British; the second one near Shakti Nagar called the Subzi Mandi Ghanta Ghar was built by a social worker; and the third one in Hari Nagar, which is the most recent, was made by a land developer. Another important but relatively lesser known clock tower was inside the Presidents’ Estate, the Rashtrapati Bhavan complex. Designed by none other than Sir Edwin Lutyens, it was constructed by the PWD in 1937. The fifth one, in the Ajmeri Gate area, was known more for its gate than the tower atop it. There may have been more towers with clocks but none as significant or part of public memory as the three main ones.
Chandni Chowk Clock Tower
The first and architecturally remarkable iconic structure was the Clock Tower built by the British between 1869-1870. It was built facing the Town Hall (constructed in 1863) when the area was being developed by the British after having crushed the First War of Independence in 1857. The last Mughal emperor Bahadurshah Zafar had been dethroned and deported to Rangoon, but he was still alive somewhere in Burma. Delhi and India were under British rule. The East India Company made way for the Crown and later for Queen Victoria to rule the great, rich, vibrant and largely secular Hindustan.
As is evident from the available photographs, the Clock Tower in Chandni Chowk was a delicately placed and sculpted tower. Its ornamental features were reflective of Romanesque or Renaissance buildings, having adapted features of and been influenced by Islamic architecture around it. Its pointed arches, spires and fluted pillars must have been a delight for those who watched it from the thoroughfare around it. One wonders why it was not restored, repaired and saved. It was an important landmark opposite the famous Town Hall which was the seat of local governance. With a very competent PWD taking care of other heritage buildings at that time, why was it demolished? Just because it was a building made by the British?
Delhi’s Town Hall. Photo: Rajinder Arora
At 128 feet high, the Chandni Chowk Clock Tower was a remarkably beautiful piece of Gothic architecture erected in Mughal Delhi of that time. This raises a question. With nearly 330 years of rule in India, why did the Mughals, known for their monumental buildings, not build a clock tower in Delhi, Agra or anywhere else? I suppose, unlike the British, the Mughals were not obsessed with time-keeping.
Originally called the Northbrook Tower, named after the then Viceroy Thomas Northbrook, the tall and elegant Clock Tower in Chandni Chowk was built by Indian artisans in the middle of a wide road which led to the Red Fort in the east and the Fatehpuri Masjid to its west. It was the same road which had a canal running in the middle of it and a busy bazaar on its two sides which was designed by Princess Jahanara, the favourite daughter of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.
Years later, about 100 feet away from this location came up another structure known as Favaara or the Brook Fountain. It is believed that Brook only contributed a small amount of money from his pocket and collected the rest from rich traders of the city to build this elegant Victorian Fountain. This popular water fountain was at the trijunction facing Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib on one side and the Old Delhi Railway Station on the other. The Gurudwara, which is the site of martyrdom of the ninth Sikh Guru Shri Guru Teg Bahadur, was built in 1783. It stands where there was once a Mughal Kotwali – a police station and a temporary jail. The Kotwali, as the records say, was demolished by the British and the land was handed over to the Sikhs as a reward for their support to the British in capturing Delhi from the Mughals. Till the middle of the 20th century, electric trams plied by the sides of the Clock Tower together with hand carts, horse carts (tongas) and a rare automobile passing by once in a while.
Delhi, 1910. Photo: Jadu Kissen
Time took its toll. A part of the Ghanta Ghar collapsed in 1950 after a mild earthquake. Since the shaken and partly damaged tower was considered dangerous to public safety, the structure was completely demolished by 1955. Town Hall records say that the clocks on the tower had stopped functioning sometime in 1949. On demolition of the tower, its clocks were saved in the Town Hall and later two of these were used on the front and rear side of the Town Hall building. One wonders why, despite a very efficient and technically capable group of Public Works Department engineers, no effort was made to save the Clock Tower.
Sabzi Mandi Clock Tower
The second and yet another popular Clock Tower landmark in Delhi is called the Sabzi Mandi Ghanta Ghar. It is about 1.5 km away from the then popular wholesale vegetable market and its companion building known as Barf Khaana or the Ice Factory at the junction of Roshanara Road and Patharwali gali. The wholesale vegetable market called the Sabzi Mandi has since moved to Azadpur in north Delhi.
The Sabzi Mandi Ghantaghar. Photo: Rajinder Arora
The Sabzi Mandi Ghanta Ghar was built in 1941, in the memory of a freedom fighter, a local leader and social worker Ram Swarup. Its location is very close to Delhi University and the popular and busy shopping area of Kamla Nagar. This clock tower also has a connection to another daughter of Shah Jahan. A road from this tower leads to the famous garden known as Roshan Aara Park. Princess Roshan Aara was the third daughter of Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. A plate hanging on the fence around the tower states its official name as ‘Ramrup Tower’ while the inauguration stone calls it ‘Ram Roop Tower’. In close vicinity of the tower there is a locality known as Swarup Nagar. It is possible that the family of Ram Swarup is somehow related to the development of that area too.
The Sabzi Mandi Clock Tower is nearly 84 feet tall. The structure from the exterior seems to be well maintained, though I couldn’t meet the person responsible for its upkeep. Two clocks of the Sabzi Mandi Ghanta Ghar are working and show the correct time. A local shopkeeper told me that these do not sound hourly bells like they used to ages back. These clocks are about three feet in diameter.
My father would talk of this very busy route starting from Ajhudhya Textile Mills on GT Road (close to Azadpur Market) all the way to Tis Hazari Courts. He would excitedly talk of rides on electric trams that operated in the area from (Maha)Rana Pratap Bagh to Subzi Mandi. This stretch, till late 1960s, had many large industrial units like the Birla Mill and was the hub for traders who had moved into India after the Partition. Amba picture hall was a popular haunt for cinema lovers in this part of the town and students of Delhi University, now popularly called North Campus. With the days of single screen theatres being over, the Amba cinema sits glum awaiting a new avatar.
Hari Nagar Ghanta Ghar
The Hari Nagar Ghanta Ghar is the third known clock tower in Delhi. It was constructed in 1950. Half a kilometre away from Tihar Jail and the DTC bus depot of the same name in north-west Delhi, this clock tower and the locality bears the name of Hari Ram who was a Diwan in the erstwhile kingdom of Jhajjhar in Haryana. This clock tower was raised at the centre of the locality as houses and shops mushroomed around it haphazardly during the 1950s and the ’60s. In those decades the clocks, and the hourly bells ringing from them must have helped many a resident who couldn’t afford a watch or an alarm clock. Till the early ’70s, the area was largely an urban village called Tihar. With the development of DDA housing in Janakpuri, apparently the largest in Asia, many unauthorised residential and commercial localities mushroomed in this part of the city. Chaos reigns here.
At about 40 feet, the height of a four-storied house, this Clock Tower can hardly be called a tower. A full grown tree covers one side of the freshly painted pink structure while a small roundabout around its wide base makes it look like a midget and barely announces its presence as a landmark public building. Three dark hollows stare at you where clocks should have been. The missing time machines are an indicator of how poor we are in maintaining our city heritage. The clock on the fourth side, covered with a protective iron grill, has frozen arms. When did the clock or the time stop, no one knows. A wooden ladder has been left on the first terrace in full public view, possibly suggesting that the repair guys are squatting somewhere and repairing the clocks. Apparently there is a caretaker of the building but he was away possibly rapping ‘Apna time aayega‘. Guess what would be the best question to ask the caretaker: What time is it, Sir?
Clock tower inside Rashtrapati Bhavan Estate
Though referred to as Ghanta Ghar, the one inside the Rashtrapati Bhavan Estate is really not a tower. Built in 1927, it was originally a Band House, later used as a Post Office for the Presidents’ Estate also. It is a heritage building. The building is a square structure with a turret-like shape having clocks on its four sides. Neatly painted in white, the building has arched alcoves with stone basins and lion-head water-spouts for fountains.
Currently it is the reception area of the Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum and facilitates guests to see an impressive collection of ceremonial regalia from the past and imagery pertaining to the great democracy that is India. The overall height of the building is nearly 70 feet but the clock tower portion is less than 20 feet.
Kamla Market Clock Tower, Ajmeri Gate
Another clock tower from the past is the one that was added on top of the entry gate to Kamla Market in the Ajmeri Gate area next to Asaf Ali Road and just outside the wall of Shahjahanabad. Built in 1951, both the gate and the tower atop it are currently in bad shape and need immediate attention before they collapse or fall apart. Though all four clocks are working, they show different times in different directions.
The clock tower in Kamla Market. Photo: Rajinder Arora
There are two open-to-air stinking urinals facing the clock tower and the gates, and one can’t stop and look at it even for a moment. Famous as a “Cooler market”, this place is the largest wholesale trading market of air coolers and its accessories in north India. In the 1960s and ’70s, this market was famous for sheet-metal trunks; some shops still have them despite the now popular plastic suitcases. The outer periphery of the market has offices of transport companies and their godowns stuffed with sundry goods.
The shopkeepers here say that the tower was being maintained by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, but sometime in 2007 MCD stopped looking after it. The traders’ association wants to preserve and repair it but are not allowed to do so by MCD engineers.
The purpose of clock towers
Though important to towns and cities, even in earlier times the clock towers were nothing more than beautifully built minarets working more as mechanical roosters crowing at fixed intervals so that people could go about their lives in an orderly or regimented manner. The Church used the Bell Towers and later the Clock Towers to remind and bring the faithful to attend to prayers. Islam made use of the tall minarets while the Hindus used conch shells or metal bells for the same purpose.
Between the 11th and 20th centuries, hundreds of clock towers came up in cities across the world. Located in the centre of the town or next to a church, their purpose was to remind people of the prayer times. The clock towers preceded the Bell Towers which were used both in Europe and the Americas as a way to call the faithful to prayers, summon people to organised work like a factory or railroad, to inform people of an emergency, a death or to make official announcements related to the public at large. A clock tower with its four faces showing the time created the same advantage that sound had. Just as the sound reaches irrespective of which way you may be looking, people didn’t have to turn in a particular direction to check the time.
The English word ‘Clock’ actually comes from the French word for ‘Bell’. A fixed interval alarm or ring was added to the clock mechanism which did exactly what a bell did with the help of a person in a Bell Tower. With the availability of large size clocks by the 15th century, Bell Towers of mediaeval times were replaced by Clock Towers. The two hands of a clock replaced the bell clapper hanging inside the sound bow. The pendulum, discovered by Galileo in the 16th century, was used in clocks 75 years later to create bell-like sound. Whatever the weather conditions, a clock functioned by itself. The clock didn’t need a window to be opened and a cord to be pulled by a person.
Perfection in motion devices, mass production of clocks and their easy maintenance helped promote the cause of building more and more clock towers or simply installing clocks on the highest point of an existing structure. The Industrial Revolution in the 18th century made good use of these time-keeping devices in motivating the workforce to report to the factories in time. Some economists say that a clock helped capitalism thrive and made slaves out of the dignified labour force. Europeans, including the British, French, Dutch, Germans and the Czechs, were obsessed with time-keeping while cultures like Chinese, Egyptians and the Greeks, who had invented and developed the first sundials – and were recording time since 3500 BC – didn’t give much importance to showing off and building towers. The sundial is one of the oldest human inventions.
Water clocks were first used in Greece around 1500 BC. Built around 50 BC, the Tower of the Winds in Athens, Greece is the oldest known clock tower in the world. It functioned as a timepiece and is also considered as the world’s first meteorological station. Its structure features a combination of sundials, a water clock and a wind vane.
Between the 11th and the mid-19th century, dynasties from the Mamluks to Mughals built some of the finest buildings of the world in India. But why didn’t they build clock towers? One reason for that could be that mechanical clocks were not easily available in India. Clock towers became an important element of supremacy for the British during the colonisation process and their obsession with time made the clock towers an artefact in a fast developing urban landscape. Across Europe, well-designed tall towers came up as public clocks, their chiming bells helping thousands in managing their day. Many important and significant buildings like the town hall, hospitals, bus and railway stations and church towers started adding clocks for maximum visibility and audibility. Independent clock towers became the identity of a town.
Household clocks were rare till about the 18th century, even among the rich. A pocket watch took another two centuries to come but was still not mass produced and was expensive. M.K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru both carried pocket watches pinned to their jackets with a chain link. The wristwatch came only in the late 19th/early 20th century for initial use only by military personnel. A watch soon became an upmarket wearable accessory and with the addition of gold rims, diamonds on the dial etc. it became expensive fashionable jewellery.
By the early 19th century, many clock towers in the world started playing musical chimes before or after ringing the bell for a certain hour. Mechanical chimes were very popular in Europe in clock towers and even came with water fountains. In India, the Rajabai Clock Tower in the University of Bombay used to chime 12 different tunes each day.
In India they say, ‘waqt badalta hai aur kisi ke liye rukta nahi ha (times change and time doesn’t stop or wait for anyone)’. Clock towers apart, a very large section of households have stopped buying or using a wall clock. Only a small number of people buy wrist watches. A digital watch on the wrist has become more of a fashion or a lifestyle accessory. With a clock now available to everyone in a mobile phone, a laptop and on every electronic device, who wants to spend money on buying a watch? There was a time we needed to wind our watches each day and had to adjust or reset time once every few months. And now with digital devices, you don’t have to worry about that any more. Precise and synchronised atomic-time is available in our hand to everyone.
The last known independent clock tower in India was built in Kolkata in 2015. It is called the Lake Town Clock Tower and is the one-third size replica of London’s iconic Big Ben (Elizabeth Tower). The city of Kolkata has the highest number of clock towers anywhere in India. Clock towers built these days are mostly for ornamental purposes or are advertising tools. Technology may have taken away its utility but it hasn’t diminished the old-world charm, appeal and the architectural aesthetics of the tower. Blinking numerals in your digital watch are nothing more than a functional aid, adding no value to anything.
Many clock towers were built in India before it was common to own a watch. Over time, clock towers become important landmarks in a city and almost every city in India has a clock tower from decades ago. A few well-known clock towers in India are –
1. The Rajabai Clock Tower, Fort Campus, University of Mumbai (1878), 280 feet. A postage stamp was issued by India Post on Rajabai clock tower in 1957;
2. Hussainabad Clock Tower, Hussainabad, Lucknow (1881), 219 feet. A special postal cancellation was issued on Hussainabad Clock Tower in 2015;
The clock tower in Haridwar. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
3. Secundrabad Clock Tower (1860), Secunderabad, Hyderabad, 120 ft;
4. Mehboob Chowk Clock Tower in Charminar area of Hyderabad (1892), 72 feet;
5. Silver Jubilee Clock Tower, Mysore, Karnataka, 75 ft tall;
6. Mint Clock Tower (1990), Chennai, 60 feet;
6. Clock Tower on Har ki Pauri of Haridwar, also known as the Raja Birla Tower and Ghantaghar, was built by Raja Baldev Das Birla, the founder of the Birla Group in 1938. One of the rare towers at a Hindu pilgrim site, it attracts millions every year. It is a freestanding 66 feet high structure. The island on which it stands is shaped like a boat which has bathing steps to enter the river Ganges. Artist Harshvardhan Kadam painted the tower with red and gold murals depicting Hindu mythological stories; and
7. The simply named the Ghanta Ghar at Lal Chowk (Red Square) in Srinagar which has been an eyewitness to political history and bloodshed in the state. Built in 1980 by Bajaj Electricals as an advertising tower, this important landmark in the city has become a significant symbol of Kashmiri politics.
Many Indian cities have clock towers in the heart of their business districts. Some of these are Dehradun, Mirzapur, Port Blair, Vizag, Murshidabad, Dehradun, Ludhiana, Indore, Darjeeling, Allahabad, Baroda, Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Chennai.
And now the Indian IT behemoth Infosys has proposed to build a clock tower at its campus in Mysore. At 443 feet, it will be the tallest free-standing clock tower in the world which will also have offices, board rooms and cafeterias in it. With the new clock towers coming up in various cities, is there an architectural revival for this form in the country?
Waqt, waqt ki baat hai, agar vo nahi raha to ye bhi nahi rahega.
Rajinder Arora is a mountaineer, trekker, photographer and a memorabilia collector but a graphic designer by profession. His adventure travelogues have been published in Indian Mountaineer and many online journals. He is the author of several books in Hindi and English.
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