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Besotted with time
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The late Mr. Poulose was passionate about clocks. He went to any lengths to collect interesting time machines. He spoke to SUNIL NALIYATH about his collection just a few days before he passed away.
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TIME MACHINES were his passion, till his last breath. N. M. Poulose of Mannathur, Piravom, who loved collecting watches and time pieces, died last week, but not before making his stint in the world memorable. In the suburbs of Ernakulam, this octogenarian had been pursuing this hobby for more than three decades. From tiny pocket watches to tall grandpa clocks, his collection is indeed a rare one. And each one has an interesting tale behind it. Mr. Poulose told this scribe just a week before he died, "More than 80 years ago, my grandfather brought home a wall clock when it was very rare. Till then the only other place with a clock was the village church. And being the only house with a wall clock, villagers used to frequent our house just to `see' the clock." Thus the first time machine in his collection was inherited. This grandfather's wall clock ignited the spark of the `collector' in him. When he died last week, he had collected more than one hundred time machines of all sorts. Riding the crest of his passion, he had travelled to places as far as Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai in his quest for clocks. And according to him, many pieces were in a state of neglect when he `discovered' them.
In some cases he had had to do restoration work too. He put into use his excellent rapport with watch repairers in Kochi. His first purchase was in 1966, but it was almost a decade later that he got addicted to this hobby. The oldest clock in this collection is a grandfather clock of French origin. This piece was acquired from a antique dealer in Coimbatore. According to him, this could be 235 years old, a fact which was endorsed by England-based valuators, Aspray & Co. This clock is run by the mechanism of two weights of 4 kgs instead of the usual spring mechanism. The dial of the clock is porcelain and stands eight-and-a-half foot tall. Another rare piece is a clock which once belonged to royalty in Tripunithura. This clock, auctioned long before our Independence, is an Ansonia, the American clock manufacturer, which stopped production as early as1882. Mr. Poulose had to pursue it for over a year to get it. Both these clocks need winding once in eight days.
The smallest in the collection is a Smith & Coproduct of England, in immaculate condition. The last entrant is yet another grandfather clock which he bought from Tamil Nadu in March this year.
The variety of the clocks, its history and working mechanisms are quite varied and mind-boggling too. Usually winding has to be done once a week but clocks which need winding every fifteen days or even thirty days are not unusual.
For instance, the German make `birthday clock' needs winding only once a year. A musical German Junghans clock that chimes every 15minutes, a tiny speaker clock, a huge punching clock, an American specialised clock used in telephone exchanges, a weight operated 78 year old German model, a full-brass roundish marine clock, another one which strikes every two-and-half hours, a pocket watch which can easily be passed off as a crystal ball and a lot more make the late Poulose' collection a rarity.
Ansonia, Seth Thomas, Seikosia, Vilco,Falck & BeidekWehrle, Odo, Anglo-Swiss etc are some of the brands found here. And a watch `doctor' used to visit him periodically to attend to his time machines.
Many a time, he rued, he could not get clocks that he tracked with great difficulty. By the time he reached the spot, the antique dealers would have struck the deal. Truly, time and tide wait for no man. Not for collector of time machines, Mr. Poulose either, as life ticked to a still, leaving his collection to posterity.
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