16/08/2026
Some things are built to last, everything else just gets replaced.
Abdul Karim Basha learned to repair watches when he was eight years old. He opened this shop forty years ago, on the same street he’s still on today. Every other shop around him has shut down since, but his hasn’t. His customers stayed, and he says he could never walk away from people who trust him with something as small as time.
He’s watched the trade change around him. Smartwatches come in for repair almost every day, but he has to turn them away, since there’s nothing inside to fix, just a screen. Before that, it was cheap China watches, bought for two or five hundred rupees just to look stylish. But the old winding watches, the automatic ones, the Rolled Gold, those last as long as the person wearing them does.
A doctor has every scan and test available, and even then, once someone is truly gone, no doctor can bring them back. But in his shop, a stopped watch gets a second chance, he starts it ticking again.
It’s not just watches that have changed on him. Tea used to cost five paise, now it’s twenty rupees, and somehow it tastes worse. Prices keep rising, income doesn’t keep up. But he’s still here, doing the same work, because, as he puts it, an unfamiliar trade only brings loss, and this one keeps him standing, even on its worst day.
Stars of Madras
Featuring Abdul Karim Basha
