People who have lived in towns where there are clock towers or ghantaghars will know what I am talking about. Besides being a great landmark, a clock tower seems to be a uniting force in a town as well. A symbol which everyone knows and recognises.
Star of the millennium Amitabh Bachchan wrote on his blog: “I look for clock towers in cities I visit and when I find them kept in working condition, it reflects to me a sense of discipline of the city I am visiting.” Going by this, one can imagine how disappointed Amitabh Bachchan would be to see the condition of the clock tower of Dehradun and also to know about the two beautiful clock towers of Old Tehri and landour (Mussoorie) that have vanished from the face of the Himalayas.
If he were to see Doon’s ghantaghar, he would get to know that it has somehow never shown the correct time. Moreover, all the four clocks of the tower show a different time! The great star’s carefulness about time is well known. He has a clock in every room in his house, as he has said on his blog. “The knowledge of time is essential,” he adds.
Bachchan further says that he had visited places that had ornate clocks in the towers but these were not working. “It is an indicator to me of what to expect from that city.” Renowned writer Ruskin Bond often says that one of the few things that have not changed in Doon Valley ever since it became a bustling metropolis is the clocks of ghantaghar showing different hours of the day. The landour Clock Tower in Mussoorie was demolished some years ago with the intention of rebuilding it, improving on the original many times over. But till today, there are no visible signs of rebuilding the landmark which gave the hill station a distinct look.
Even when the clock tower stood in landour, people in this hill station had been missing the sounds of the bells of the tower for the past 20 years. The clocks had not been working despite some efforts to get them repaired. But now, the tower itself is gone! The landour Clock Tower was built in the late 1930s by Ugrasen Verma. At the place where the clock tower is situated, a police station guarded the border of the civil area and the cantonment in 1892. The first clock tower of the hill station was built at St George’s College in Mussoorie.
JB Joyce & Co, the famous makers of high-class church and turret clocks, installed the clock there. The Westminster Chimes echoed in the adjacent forest and kept the wild animals away from the school. The clock became popular and the administrators of Mussoorie got the idea that another public clock for the town would be immensely valuable, especially as few people had wristwatches in those days. It also served the English soldiers on their way to various churches in the town.
Ugrasen Verma also built the white sandstone Kasmanda lodge and the Kateswar Temple near lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration which can be still seen. For a sum of Rs 14,000, he completed the landour Clock Tower in 1938-39. He died in 1992, without his wish of hearing the clock tower working again being fulfilled.
Sadly, the famous clock tower of Tehri town met a watery grave when the town was drowned in 2005 when the Tehri Dam was completed. In the heart of Tehri, the impressive yellow structure had a significant role in the social and cultural life of the town. Built in the year 1897 by Raja Kirti Shah, Tehri’s fourth king, in honour of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee of accession to the throne, the clock tower had exquisite architecture and was believed to be one of the few of its kind in the world.
In 2001, the four antique clocks of the 110-feet high towering ghantaghar were stolen. It drowned without its clocks. Cherishing our ghantaghars (wherever they still stand) would be a nice way of showing our respect for time, our intention to make good use of every passing moment, our feelings for old traditions and our will to preserve things for posterity. let us keep the clock towers and look after them well. And ensure they show the right time!