The Clockmaker’s Secret

The last 34 years in Jungadh have offered me everything that I need. Eventless life, wonderful weather, and more importantly, a thin population. And yet, it is time for me to wrap up and leave. More than 35 years and people notice my oddities. The old begin to die, babies begin to arrive, and I remain as I am.

It’s past midnight and I am still staring at the dying dance of the flames in my shop. But I won’t let it die just yet. Let me savour these last few pleasant nights of Jungadh. I place a few more wooden sticks in the fireplace. The fire swallows them up and comes back to life. I can’t help but smile at how the sticks burn out one by one, only to keep the fire alive. On repeat.

Just then, I hear a knock on the shop window. “Come tomorrow. I am sleeping,” I shout only to realise the silliness of what I have just said. There is no response. Whoever it is, opens the window, places a watch, and walks away. Of course, I can just visualize all of this happening. The window opens to my collection centre – a small box where the customers drop their watches while I work at the dispensary. These days nobody can sustain only on clockmaking, especially in a village. Being an attendant of the doctor makes life easier.

I go to the collection box and a watch with a worn-out leather strap greets me. Is it the same watch? I can’t be sure. A note accompanies. I walk back to the fireplace to read what it says. Just two words. “Savitri lives.”

In an impulse, I throw the note in the fireplace and step back - as if Savitri was about to appear out of the note. The fire dutifully gobbles up the paper and I rush to the door to see if the messenger is still around. Nobody.

My mind goes back to the past. Savitri. The one who taught me how to work with clocks. Oh what fun it was to play with all the clocks in her father’s workshop. From giant grandfather clocks to tiny timepieces – he had them all. And the best part? He never asked us to stop exploring.

My smile turns into an angry frown. “He should have asked us to stop; asked me to stop.” I remember that fateful game of hide and seek – stepping into her room and pocketing her watch. For three nights, I kept studying its insides. Half asleep, half awake. As if Savitri’s watch had stolen my sense of time. I still remember the dream, if it was one. The voice in the dream still rumbled in my head, “The trick to live forever is to keep stealing time from people’s clocks.” Once I was back in my senses, I realized how stupid this whole idea was. I was not a clockmaker. What business did I have to study a watch’s mechanism? But then again, I had to test the dream. Steal Savitri’s time from her watch. In utter confusion, I threw the stupid watch on the floor and broke it.

When her father opened the door the next day, I had returned the mangled watch to him. “Uncle, isn’t this Savitri’s? I found it near the school.” Without a word, he went inside. I followed him in, only to hear him say, “Throw it away. Savitri is no more.”

It has been more than three hundred years since. And I have been living on time stolen from people’s clocks. Keeping the flame of my life alive by hanging on to other wood sticks. I stare at the fireplace, traces of the note long turned to ashes.