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Even Older….! Treasures in our backyard - 16 Apr 2008
On April 10 this year, Big Ben – probably the best-known bell in the world – which is inside the famous clock tower in London, celebrated the 150th anniversary of its existence. Cast in the Whitechapel Bell Foundry which is said to be one of only two such foundries left in the UK today, the huge 14.5 ton bell inside the world's largest four-faced chiming clock, even now provides right time and those distinctive chimes known to Britons as the ‘bongs’.
For tourists flocking to London, among the famous sights at which to aim their cameras – like BuckinghamPalace, the Tower of London, Nelson's Column and the London Eye, is also The Big Ben – which in a recent poll was voted Britons' favourite landmark. Despite its popularity, funnily it is not uncommon for tourists and even taxi drivers to mistake the elegant Victorian edifice of the Palace of Westminster Clock Tower with the Big Ben.
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry which made Big Ben, along with America's Liberty Bell, is just one among a number of others who cast bells for cathedrals and churches around the world in the days of yore. One such beneficiary Church in India sporting an ancient clock tower is in Mahé on our west coast, which I had occasion to stumble upon during my tenure as the chief of Pondicherry Police. Mahé, midst surrounding Kerala, is one of the four constituent erstwhile French-ruled land territories now in the Union Territory of Pondicherry.
According to a brief history of the Mahé church dedicated to St Teresa of Avila – prepared by Fr. Menezes – a former vicar, one Abbé Duchenin reconstructed the then existing thatched roof church in 1788 with laterite stone and Mangalore tiles, in its present model. The Church tower was then renovated in 1855 and a clock was installed on this tower presented to the Church by some French Marines. To this day – at least till the time I saw it in the late 90s, it has given correct time to the whole town of Mahé. According to Mahé’s historian novelist Gangadharan, the clock was from Borel, Paris – one of the very early clock manufacturers, set up by Jules Borel and Paul Courvoisier way back in the 1850s – and installed in Mahé church in 1855, three years before the BIG BEN in London was erected above the British Parliament in 1858. Even though the Mahé clock is not as big as the BIG BEN, the fact that it is three years older (if Gangadharan’s version is to be given credence) and still giving good time, is significant.
It makes me wonder why we Indians care so little to know about our heritage and such wonderful treasures lying in our very own backyard, whilst Britons celebrate their ‘bonging’ counterparts!
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