A timely offer from 'clock tower man'

AHMEDABAD: Dinesh Raval is unlike any other septuagenarian you come across on the street on a busy day. He walks with a slight limp, but you hold him by the forearm and it is hard as steel. He is called the ‘clock tower man’ and his hands make clocks tick.
"This strength in my forearm is because of my profession . I repair clocks," he says. Raval has offered to repair the Saijpur Bogha tower clock and the Bhadra tower clock for AMC.They had broken down decades ago.
The most precious assignment on his detailed resume is of 1985 when Raval sent technical drawings to Smith and Sons in London for repairing the Big Ben – the iconic clock tower in London.
"The technical organiser of Smith and Sons had asked me to submit detailed drawings of a string device that struck every 15 minutes. This clock had three different sounds. I got this assignment because of my father’s reputation as we were manufacturing designs of the Westminster , Willington and Big Ben clocks. Our designs were also used to repair the 1860 Bhuj clock tower manufactured by Smith and Sons a few years ago."
Raval inherited this passion of repairing and fixing tower clocks from his father Bhanudatta Raval, who owned the Indian Clock Manufacturing Company at Dhrangadhra in Surendranagar district.
The company had both installed and supplied parts to more than 6,000 tower clocks around the country and the factory was inaugurated by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in 1928. "In the same year my father was awarded by the British government for his clock works. My expertise was in tower clock mechanics," says Raval.
At 72 years, Raval travels throughout the country repairing his father’s clocks. "Be it Belgaum, Bikaner, Vasad , Dhrangadhra, Bhuj, Bikaner , Kolhapur and Kamla Nehru park in Mumbai or the platform clocks at central VT station, if I find the clocks neglected I volunteer to repair them," Raval says.
Owing to a family feud, Raval lost his father’s factory to his relatives and is currently operating from Maharaja of Dhrangadhra’s palace compound . "Maharaja Sriraj was kind enough to provide me some room for my works. Today it’s only my daughter Neha , a classical dancer, who knows the art of clock tower repair. I miss my father’s factory a lot, but his passion now lives in me."