Eduljee Dinshaw Charity Dispensary, Karachi. Photo: Anadolu Agency (archives)
KARACHI:
The metropolitan city of Karachi is often portrayed in headlines as chaotic and overwhelmed by the sprawling expansion of modernity.
But scattered among the skyscrapers, congested roads and dense informal settlements are the remains of a different city – a port once famous for its order, elegance and architecture.
Among the most striking remains are Karachi’s historic clock towers – orange and pink structures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries – that once guided the city’s rhythms.
Today, many of them are crumbling, forgotten or overrun by encroachment, leaving historians and conservationists worried that a rare chapter of the city’s past will soon disappear.
In the heart of downtown Saddar, sandwiched between Chinese dental clinics and corner grocery stores, stands the 19th-century clock tower of the Eduljee Dinshaw Charity Dispensary, now a facility of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC).
The Victorian-era structure, built in 1882, is still used as a dispensary, but its once-white wooden windows are now blackened by exhaust fumes. The clock mounted above its entrance has no hands – frozen for decades. On a recent morning, pigeons perched wearily on its weathered stones while health workers inside conducted free dengue tests.
At the rear, the emergency stairs are collapsing, the paint torn off for a long time. The rusty spiral steps to the top of the tower recall a time when keepers wound the clock every day.
A few kilometers away, the Léa Market clock tower, once a favorite public gathering place, is in even worse condition.
A makeshift vegetable market stretches across the building, while dozens of auto rickshaws treat the entrance like a permanent, illegal terminal.
“It was a favorite gathering place for everyone in the area, young and old, until the 1980s,” said Mukhtar Baloch, a 70-year-old retired teacher.
“I still remember when this place was a place for political and social debates and public meetings. But with time, it has lost its glory, just like many of our other heritage sites.”
The heartbeat of the forgotten city
Shaheen Nauman, a heritage researcher based in Karachi, said around 11 clock towers have been documented in the city until 2019, most of them built between 1882 and 1931.
Recent surveys have uncovered four more in the southern districts, bringing the known total to 15, including Merewether Tower (1884), Holy Trinity Cathedral (1885), Empress Market (1889), Poonabai Mamaiya (1889), Sydenham Passenger Lodge (1913), Lakshmi Building (1924) and Lea Market (1927).
Of those, only three are still operating, Nauman said, and the rest are awaiting attention from authorities.
“These towers were built between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, at a time when watches were a luxury that very few people could afford,” she explains.
Urgent preservation is needed
There are glimmers of hope. At the Empress Market, the centerpiece of colonial-era Karachi, the clock tower has been brought back to life thanks to the passion of local artist and technician Bilal Asif.
Once buried under hundreds of illegal vendor kiosks, the market regained its historic façade after a massive anti-encroachment campaign in 2018. But its iconic clock remained broken until Asif intervened.
“It was a huge challenge to bring back to life a clock that had stopped decades ago,” he told Anadolu.
“But I accepted the challenge and took it on again. It took weeks of hard work, but I’m glad we managed to restore it.”
Today, it is the only hybrid-powered tower clock in Karachi. Among the other clock towers that are still functioning, the one at KMC headquarters requires weekly winding, while the clocks at Merewether Tower are solar powered.
Despite occasional restoration efforts, experts fear the situation is bleak.
Architect and heritage advocate Marvi Mazhar called for a structured intervention. “These clocks must be declared heritage assets. There must be monthly checks and notes must be recorded, so that there are accounts and investigations, if necessary,” she said.
Nauman agreed that if one tower can be revived, others can too. “These forgotten clock towers were once the heart of the city. They symbolize time itself and its deep meaning in human life,” she said. “When the clock in Merewether Tower or the KMC building strikes, its sound takes us back a hundred years, to a time when it was the only guide to the rhythm of daily life.”
