Old Poor House Rd, near Commercial St, is where you will find one of the oldest working clocks in the city. On a wall in the Jumma Masjid is a clock that has been keeping time since 1907. It was presented to the mosque by M. Yousuff Sait, one of Bangalore’s only watchmakers at that time. This pendulum clock, manufactured in New York by Ansonia, tolls every half-hour.
Sait maintained the clock himself, winding it every Friday after the noon prayers. On his death in 1948, his son, Z. Yousuff Sait took over the routine and has continued since.
The clock is oiled and cleaned every three or four years, but what is most fascinating about this particular keeper of time is that no parts have been changed over the past 93 years.
Oh that today’s chronometers were made so well!
