Madras Day 2026: alone with the timepieces at tiny Peer & Sons in Mylapore

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

S. Shakil Ahmed at his shop, Peer & Sons on Kutchery Road in Mylapore.

On that part of Kutchery Road, where the Buckingham Canal flows sluggishly under a bridge, S. Shakil Ahmed operates from a shop smaller than a niche in a dovecote. The shop was once larger, recalls Shakil, but as the owner reclaimed a part of it for another enterprise, it shrunk to its present dimensions. But this small shop still catches the eye for its wall displays: clocks, either demode or delectably antique, depending on the eye beholding them. Another eye-catching feature is the enseigne above the entrance that announces the enterprise as Peer & Sons. When quizzed about the name and its homonymic alignment with the iconic P. Orr & Sons on Mount Road, Shakil sounds a tad amused as he offers a reply: obviously, when they see this shop, they know the two are galaxies apart. But when they hear the name ‘Peer & Sons’ over the phone, they would be confused for a split second. And the name was not carefully chosen to evoke that iconic shop, remarks Shakil, just to reflect that it was started by his father S.K. Peer.

S.K. Peer had opened this shop in 1963 and continued in the saddle till his demise in 2008. Shakil relishes reminiscing about the unquestioning obedience with which he followed in his father’s footsteps, not in 2008 but way back in 1991 when the senior was at the height of his prowess as a mender of timepieces and he was just a school student. Shakil joined his father as his understudy in 1991, right after finishing his Class X board exams.

“I did not even wait for my results,” he says with a faint laugh at the memory.

“If my father asked for something, it was always a yes,” states Shakil, his decision driven by a straightforward logic: if his father needed him at the shop, that was reason enough to be there.

He observes that for parents to get a ‘yes’ from their children today, they would have to first answer a gazillion ‘whys’. Shakil, who has three children, two girls and a boy, all of them falling within the Gen Z bracket, is at peace with the current generation’s questioning mindset as they are spoilt for choice in terms of career options, and have information at hand to suss those careers out.

What began as an attempt to help his father in this metier, turned into a deep-rooted passion for mending the keepers of time. Watching his father repair watches and clocks, he was fascinated by the work, the patience it demanded and the power one felt when they got the timepiece ticking again. He was actively trained in this craft by his father, and Shakil proudly admits the way he repairs timepieces is rooted in that hands-on training.

To the question, if he has ever regretted not having taken a different career path, Shakil’s answer is a ‘no’, but he qualifies it by admitting that on rare occasions, the thought has crossed his mind. That thought most likely occurred during the pandemic and in recent times, on account of Metro Rail work at the Luz Corner (where Kutchery Road meets Luz Church Road meet) restricting access to his shop.