Ghadiyalji

Ghadiyalji Bard

Radhika Malekar

1993, Latur

“Ghadiyalji!”, Anant Namaye called out to his boss from the workshop.

“I’ve repaired these 4 clocks here. Are there any more left?”

“I think you’ve done enough work for today, Anant”, Mr. Ghadiyal said with an old wrinkly smile.

“Go home; your family must be waiting for dinner.”

It had been four years since Anant had first started with this job at Mr. Firoz Ghadiyal’s shop. Over the years, Mr. Ghadiyal had seen Anant slowly develop an interest in gears. His fingers had a way to deftly work with them. Recognizing this talent, Mr. Ghadiyal had taken Anant under his wing. Having loved gears himself for a long time, Mr. Ghadiyal was glad to see Anant’s curiosity towards the same. He had carefully nurtured his talent and was now sure that Anant could fix any clock or watch in the world. Anant too highly respected Mr. Ghadiyal and looked up to him. He liked to call him ‘Ghadiyalji’ as it always amused him to think that how could someone’s surname actually turn out to be his profession.

Mr. Ghadiyal’s family had long ago settled in Latur and he himself had grown up there.

That day, both of them closed the shop for the day. Mr. Ghadiyal’s house was just behind the shop, so Anant bid him goodbye and went home.

Anant lived in a nearby neighbourhood called Dhotre Wadi with his wife, Aarti and a kid. Narrow lanes and dense houses allowed the possibility of daily interactions. One could hardly spot where one house ends and another one starts. Although there were occasional tiffs, it was an interdependent locality where no one led a discrete life. The Namayes owned a small house which had one balcony sharing its chajja with their neighbour.

Aarti was a homemaker and loved to pot plants. She was known to have a green hand. In that tiny balcony of theirs, she had managed to grow 15 different plants which blossomed with a variety of flowers, fruits and also a few vegetables!

Born and brought up in Latur, Dhotrewadi was close to Anant’s heart.

Soon after getting married, he had lost his parents and his elder brother had relocated to Mumbai, searching for better prospects. Back then, Latur was a city affording a rudimentary life. Owning a cycle sufficed their daily transportation needs. Longer journeys were made by availing the state transport facility. Roads used to be filled with people on bicycles, tangas, bullock carts and very less bikes and scooters. Most of the shops were family owned businesses and restaurants mostly served typical maharashtrian food. Apart from daily hustle and bustle, there was a sense of placidity to the city.

, little did they know,

As they slept that night

devastation was leading their way

.

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Every s e shop’s basem he rest of ey were econd w ent with going to as spen the survive t b the eart e hquake ing horrified .

The following morning arrived bearing news of misery and sorrow. People pulled out corpses with blue lips from under the rubble. Their senses had numbed down. Everything seemed to happen passively. Dust and desolation hung low in the sky.

Aarti and Anant with their kid went over rubbles and debris to the place where once their house stood. Their misery knew no bounds.

After a few days of clearing up, Anant learnt that Mr. Ghadiyal had lost his shop and was himself drowned in losses. Anant didn’t have so much money that he could restore his house. There was nothing left for them in Latur anymore, moreover his brother was inviting him to shift to Mumbai. So, within a few days, Anant with his family moved to Mumbai in a place called Parsiwada, Andheri.

Mumbai, was a complete contrast to their hometown. Life here was far from banal.

Everyday was a new challenge.

His brother used to work in a factory called Bharat.inc and was himself trying to make ends meet. He had generously provided a room for Anant and Aarti to start afresh. They knew they had to start finding jobs soon as it indeed was an expensive city to live in. Still adjusting to the sudden changes in life and dealing with the trauma of their past, both of them set out to search for means of earning. Anant tried getting a job at various watchmaker shops but that didn’t work out. Nobody knew him or his talent in this new place. Eventually, with the help of his brother’s friend, Anant finally got a job as an order booking clerk in a courier service company called Vichare Couriers in Parle (east).

His work wasn’t tedious but it also didn’t pay much. Ultimately, Aarti started working in nearby households providing domestic help. Working day by day, saving every possible penny, they slowly began deciphering the enigma of living in Mumbai.

Parsiwada, the neighbourhood they lived in, resembled a lot to Dhotre Wadi, appearance wise. Similar narrow lanes connecting even narrower by-lanes and houses densely lined on either side of these. Yet, looking at this new place didn’t strike nostalgia. Here people, although somewhat helpful towards each other, lived very discrete lives. Gossips weren’t just something fun, but vile. In spite of all this, they were thankful for getting a second chance to start their life, which they were well aware many didn’t.

With all this chaos happening around, Anant’s fascination with clocks and watches sounded like a happy story from some long-lost memory.

One day, while sitting at his office desk, munching chanas, Anant noticed someone struggling to keep a big grandfather clock near the warehouse gate. He sprang from his chair and bolted towards the guy.

“Bhaiya! Wait!” called out Anant from a distance while running towards that guy.

“What are you going to do with this?”, Anant asked.

“Sell it away for its wood, it stopped working. A watchmaker tried to repair it but it won’t budge.”, the guy answered indifferently.

“Do you mind if I try to fix it once?”, Anant asked hopefully.

“Yeah sure but let me tell you, it won’t budge”, said the guy.

“Please give me until tomorrow, I will try and fix it”, said Anant with a surge of excitement. Anant was feeling happy that day after a long time it seemed.

He rushed home that day and told Aarti what had happened. His only problem was that he didn’t have any clock repairing tools with him. Aarti urged him to buy a small toolbox. He hesitated for a moment but then quickly went to the market and bought himself a nice little toolkit which almost had all the basic tools necessary to work with a clock.

The next day, he went a bit early to work and sat down with his new project. Throughout the day, he spent his entire free time working on that clock. He even missed his lunch. By the end of the day, that clock stood there flaunting its grandiosity. It announced 6pm to all the workers, claiming the end of a shift.

This surely turned heads.

Soon, all his co-workers began bringing in their damaged watches for him to repair. Rather shortly, the word spread all over his neighbourhood and people started approaching him with their clocks and watches. As time passed and more people got to know, he decided to start charging small amounts for his service.

Anant strongly believed that life was never fair to him. He used to curse the gods, holding them responsible for the misery he and his family had to go through. That surely lifted his faith from god but instead he chose to worship time. He had seen good and worse things, endured everything, but what always remained constant was the periodic change in time. His love for gears had developed even more after coming to Mumbai because he had found a way to manipulate time. It’s like the theory of relativity. Unless you compare the time in your watch with someone else’s, the time in your watch continues to be your reality.

2020, Mumbai

Few years ago, they managed to build a vertical extension for themselves to the existing structure. Aarti still works in various households to support the family. Their son works as a data entry clerk in a CA firm.

Anant now works at the airport in the luggage management department during the day and spends his nights working on clocks and watches brought to him by his customers. At home, he has made himself a nice working counter nestled against a corner of the room where he can comfortably work for hours. Apart from the time he spends at night working with watches, he makes sure to carry his toolbox with him all the time so that he can work anywhere throughout the day. Recent economic shifts have altered the idea of a secure job. People can no longer rely on having a steady job. So having a toolkit which Anant carries with himself everywhere serves as his own shop. This toolbox is nothing but an old wooden box which opens in a thousand different mysterious ways. Its sturdy wooden appearance is a contrast to the delicate nature of the tools and watches it stores. Carrying around this shop, everybody now calls Anant, ‘Ghadiyalji’.