At a Mumbai shop, this Bengaluru man bought 100-year-old watch for Rs 13,000; its forgotten name led him to uncover a vanished chapter of Bangalore's Cantonment history
In 2013, Bengaluru history enthusiast Kiran Natarajan came across a photograph of an old pocket watch at a shop in Mumbai's Bhendi Bazar. What caught his attention was not just the watch itself, but the name engraved on its face — Marlam and Company , a name associated with a long-forgotten business in Bangalore's Cantonment. Natarajan had heard of the company years earlier while speaking to an old British soldier during a visit to the UK. The soldier, who had been posted in India, had spoken to him about Bangalore and mentioned Marlam and Company, which sold watches in the city.
So when a colleague showed Natarajan photographs of curios being sold at the Mumbai shop, the watch immediately stood out. He decided to travel to Bhendi Bazar to see it for himself. The watch was still available. About 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter, it was made of silver and porcelain, with fine crosshatching on its back that showed the craftsmanship of the people who made it. The shopkeeper had initially planned to sell it for around $300, or about Rs 19,000 at the time. Natarajan eventually bought it for Rs 13,000.
The forgotten name on the dialThe more Natarajan researched Marlam and Company, the more difficult its history became to reconstruct. An advertisement in the 1917 YMCA Soldiers' Guide to Bangalore described the firm as offering watch, eyeglass and jewellery repairs at prices suited to soldiers. Another reference appeared in the September 1920 edition of The Pioneer Mail and Indian Weekly News, which mentioned Marlam and Company among businesses that presented cups at a boxing tournament held in Bangalore.
A listing in Thacker's Indian Directory, an important business directory of the period, described Marlam as watch and clock makers, jewellers and silversmiths, electroplaters and gilders, opticians and engravers. What emerges from these fragments is that the company catered to the soldiers living in Bangalore's Cantonment and offered a range of specialised services.
But who owned the watch?That question remained unanswered. Looking at the pocket watch, Natarajan could only speculate about the life it had once had.
Had it been bought by a British soldier stationed in Bangalore? Was it an expensive personal possession belonging to an officer? Could it have been purchased by a wealthy Indian? Who had selected it, and how many other watches had they considered before buying it? And how did it eventually travel from Bangalore to a shop in Mumbai? Natarajan wondered whether its owner had sold it before leaving India, pawned it for money, or simply parted with it when the business disappeared. There was no surviving record to provide the answers.
A watch became a piece of old BangaloreFor Natarajan, however, the unanswered questions were part of what made the object valuable. The watch offered a glimpse of a Bangalore that had largely disappeared — a city where shops and businesses served the needs of the Cantonment's residents and where names that were once familiar eventually vanished.
The same old Bangalore included places such as Hill's News Agency and Music Depot, where people could smoke cigars and spend time in its billiard room; A Lavender and Co, which sold silks and carpets; the Royal Dispensary; and B Sreeramulu Chetty and Sons on Commercial Street, which sold wines. Natarajan was not simply collecting an old watch. He was collecting fragments of a city whose everyday history was disappearing. By 2018, he and others hoped to gather enough such material to start a museum showcasing old Bangalore. And among those objects, a silver-and-porcelain pocket watch from a forgotten Cantonment business continued to tick — carrying with it a history that could no longer be fully recovered.
So when a colleague showed Natarajan photographs of curios being sold at the Mumbai shop, the watch immediately stood out. He decided to travel to Bhendi Bazar to see it for himself. The watch was still available. About 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter, it was made of silver and porcelain, with fine crosshatching on its back that showed the craftsmanship of the people who made it. The shopkeeper had initially planned to sell it for around $300, or about Rs 19,000 at the time. Natarajan eventually bought it for Rs 13,000.
The forgotten name on the dialThe more Natarajan researched Marlam and Company, the more difficult its history became to reconstruct. An advertisement in the 1917 YMCA Soldiers' Guide to Bangalore described the firm as offering watch, eyeglass and jewellery repairs at prices suited to soldiers. Another reference appeared in the September 1920 edition of The Pioneer Mail and Indian Weekly News, which mentioned Marlam and Company among businesses that presented cups at a boxing tournament held in Bangalore.
A listing in Thacker's Indian Directory, an important business directory of the period, described Marlam as watch and clock makers, jewellers and silversmiths, electroplaters and gilders, opticians and engravers. What emerges from these fragments is that the company catered to the soldiers living in Bangalore's Cantonment and offered a range of specialised services.
But who owned the watch?That question remained unanswered. Looking at the pocket watch, Natarajan could only speculate about the life it had once had.
Had it been bought by a British soldier stationed in Bangalore? Was it an expensive personal possession belonging to an officer? Could it have been purchased by a wealthy Indian? Who had selected it, and how many other watches had they considered before buying it? And how did it eventually travel from Bangalore to a shop in Mumbai? Natarajan wondered whether its owner had sold it before leaving India, pawned it for money, or simply parted with it when the business disappeared. There was no surviving record to provide the answers.
A watch became a piece of old BangaloreFor Natarajan, however, the unanswered questions were part of what made the object valuable. The watch offered a glimpse of a Bangalore that had largely disappeared — a city where shops and businesses served the needs of the Cantonment's residents and where names that were once familiar eventually vanished.
The same old Bangalore included places such as Hill's News Agency and Music Depot, where people could smoke cigars and spend time in its billiard room; A Lavender and Co, which sold silks and carpets; the Royal Dispensary; and B Sreeramulu Chetty and Sons on Commercial Street, which sold wines. Natarajan was not simply collecting an old watch. He was collecting fragments of a city whose everyday history was disappearing. By 2018, he and others hoped to gather enough such material to start a museum showcasing old Bangalore. And among those objects, a silver-and-porcelain pocket watch from a forgotten Cantonment business continued to tick — carrying with it a history that could no longer be fully recovered.
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