He saved time for 38 yrs, now wants to preserve it

Chennai: For close to four decades, Robert Kennedy has always kept a close watch on his clocks. The "clock man of Chennai", as he is known, spends 12 hours a day checking in on them, working with his clocksmith to ensure his mechanical menagerie is dust and glitch-free. This past week though Kennedy has had an extra spring in his step because he finally got officially confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the man with the largest collection of clocks, six years after he applied for it.
"Every clock in my collection was scrutinised for the past six years," says the 58-year-old retired businessman, who was asked to send in an 11-hour video of his clocks to show that they were all in working condition. "I've got a collection of 2,500 clocks but only 1,706 qualified for the Guinness Record count. Still, it's the world's largest collection."

Kennedy says he was inspired by stories of his grandfather, who worked at a tea estate in Munnar and was gifted a car and Ansonia calendar clock when he retired. "I was fascinated with that clock because to me it was a symbol of dedication and precision. In the end, that's what clocks are all about." He began collecting timepieces in 1983 and ended up with so many that he turned a room of his home in Kodambakkam into a ‘clock museum', which is open to visitors for free.Kennedy's collection includes 1,000 mechanical wristwatches and 550 pocket watches, most of them a century old, the "youngest" of them having been manufactured in 1998. The oldest clock he has is 290 years old and the smallest is a 1.5-inch pendulum clock. "All the timepieces are vintage mechanical. I do not have a single battery-operated clock in my collection," he says. "I find most of my treasures at scrap dealers. And then spend time restoring them into working condition."
Kennedy now wants to set up a museum space dedicated to saving his precious time. "These clocks are my babies and I want them taken care of even after I am gone. I am simultaneously working on setting up a trust for a museum as well as talking to the government to make it a part of a state museum. I have also applied under the Union government's private museum grant scheme," he says. "I am hoping one of these comes to fruition."
Until then, says Kennedy, he will keep adding to his 2,500-mechanical timepiece collection. Actually, make that 2,501, he says, as he just added one more to his collection this week. Another mechanical wonder he picked up from a scrap dealer in Moore market.