Time Pass for Twenty Rupees

FORTYFIVE YEAR old Jaffer Ali wipes the sweat running down his ear. Standing outside India Silk House, he's all bathed in sweat, and he has a towel around him with which he wipes himself with every ten minutes. A few yards away, the electronic billboard at Tarapore Towers, announces 35 degrees of scorching branded Chennai summer.

In gruelling times, Jaffer Ali bides his time, with the earth below, the sky above and his `shop' beside him. Not that it qualifies being called a `shop', for there are just a couple of tables displaying his wares, the usual hawker-kind but for a board that reads Rs. 20.

One has to take a second look before one realises that here was a man selling watches for twenty rupees. Further enquiries then reveal that the twenty rupees tag includes the battery!

The buyer takes a look at the watch. It has a ``dog'' on the dial. Look around and there are cats, there's Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and other fake Disney characters. ``Kid stuff'', is the initial reaction. Open it and you can see time, blinking at you from inside. ``For twenty rupees, a working watch will make any kid's day, even if it lasts only for a day,'' is the thought that comes next.

The skepticism slowly fades away. ``How long will it last?'', ``Theriyathu Saar'', says Jaffer Ali. Some last a year, some only a week. It all depends on the cell, he explains.

Jaffer Ali has been selling watches on the pavements for the last thirty years. ``I make five rupees on every watch I sell, Saar. It is okay with me. Everywhere else, you see people bargaining with hawkers... Nothing wrong with them, because some of them quote Rs. 75 to Rs. 80 for these watches. I don't want to charge extra, Saar. I'm a good Muslim, I don't cheat,'' he says.

But where does he get these watches from? ``From Parrys, Kasi Chetty Street,'' he says. Jaffer has trained his son Yousuf, on the job too. For he's getting old and his family needs a steady bread-winner.

A tonsured Yousuf silently watches his father, do the job - putting the `machine' into the otherwise toy of a watch and making it comealive.Jaffer Ali's range of watches include trendy models including sports watches, apart from the toy-watches with `dogs' and `cats' on the dial. And then there are watch-straps.

Towards his left, a few yards away is the bus-stop that commuters refer to as P.Orr and Sons. But that does not deter Jaffer Ali from selling 20-25 watches a day.

Rado, the Swiss watch manufacturer recently, was in the news for launch of its prestigious `Cerix' model, with brand ambassadors such as Kapil Dev and Lisa Ray. Rado is an expression of personality, made with scratch-proof material, with its archetypal form of the helix signifying unending flow of time. Perfection, some would say.

But then, that's no competition for Jaffer Ali.

By Sudhish Kamath

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Section  : Features
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