Year-end special: The Watch Doctor of Bur Dubai

If there's one person who believes in order in chaos, it is Mohammad Irshad Hussain. His hole in the wall watch repair shop is as nondescript as it gets - probably 20sqft in size, about a foot wide, and on the inside of the foyer of a residential building in Meena Bazaar. A building tenant claims Mohammad - whom many just call Irshad because of the tiny sign peeking out of the side of the wall that says 'Irshad Watch Repairing' - is the oldest and best tenant the building's ever had. And you would be inclined to believe him; after all, the shop has been there only since 1987, named after his father, Irshad.
Over the years, mostly from the sheer accumulation of abandoned clocks and watches and the plethora of their odd bits and ends, the space has become a sort of display case - a horological graveyard, or a salvage yard for timepieces, their mechanical limbs and guts strewn from floor to ceiling, wall to glass wall.

One glance at a watch and he knows what the defect is
"My father came to Dubai and started this watch repair shop back then," says 47-year-old Mohammad. "Then, he fell ill, so I came to help him with the business." Mohammad dabbled in engineering, then dropped it halfway to take up interior design, before moving to Dubai in 1990. He was 22. A Mumbaikar, the only time his perpetually smiling face grimaces is when he states he hasn't been home in 18 years. "Can you believe that? It has been 18 years on the trot!" He just hasn't had the time. Irony is a cruel, cruel mistress.
Mohammad, however, remains the cheery jewel of this side street; a man with a heart of gold. Everyone knows him - people off the street stop just to greet him - and there's a steady stream of customers bringing him their ailing mechanical patients, some even from other parts of the GCC, snaking their way through the narrow Meena Bazaar roads in fancy cars. Some need a new ticker, some just a strap change, and some require precision repair akin to the deft work of a surgeon. And with his set of tools, he very much plays the part of a watch doctor, minus the scrubs.
Like a good doctor, he knows every one of his patients, even if they're bundled into plastic bags and Tupperware containers in no particular order whatsoever. "How do you even remember what is where?" I ask, as someone comes asking for a watch he had left for repairs some days prior. He smiles and gestures to his head, indicating, what I can only assume to be a remarkable memory.
I watch as he opens a polythene bag, digs out the man's watch, hands it to him, explains what was wrong and tells him how much he owes. Dh60 for repairs and a strap change. Kind of makes you feel like every one of those 60-minute watch repair kiosks in malls are con artists.
When asked about all the, for lack of a better word, junk, in his shop, he says, "I can either fix watches or clean up that mess. One day, I'd like to clean it up."
For the past nearly 26 years, Mohammad has been fixing everything from old grandfather clocks to complex Rolexes. But he is sad that they just don't make watches like they used to before. "Watches were like heirlooms... today, people don't care as much. Also, the cellphone has changed everything..."
In all these years, he has never come across a watch he can't fix. Like a wise old doctor, he can ?tell you exactly what's wrong with a watch in a glance or two. "I learnt everything from my father, but the most important thing he taught me was 'be honest and be reasonable'."
Photos by Kiran Prasad/Khaleej Times
rohit@khaleejtimes.com