The Hussainabad clock tower in Lucknow. Picture by Prithish Kumar

Lucknow, Nov. 7: At 221 feet, it still towers above its surroundings, like a Gulliver in chains. The 14-foot pendulum has gone limp and many of the digits ? marking the minutes and hours ? are missing, giving “India’s Big Ben” a toothless look.

The bird atop the big dome hangs grotesquely with its head down. The five giant bells no longer send their unearthly chimes echoing eerily thro-ugh the city on new-moon nights.

The hands are frozen at 7.30, when, some 15 years ago, the country’s highest and most famous clock tower fell silent.

While London’s best-known landmark, the Big Ben, has weathered World War II bombings to be still alive and ticking, its clone in Lucknow, younger by 24 years, has died of neglect.

Standing forlorn at Mohammad Ali Shah Park between a thick cover of vegetation and a lake, the Hussainabad clock tower barely earns a few passing glances of pity and curiosity from tourists before they head north towards the Bara Imambara, famous for its interlocking bricks, the Jama Masjid and Shah Najat Imambara.

An attempt to repair the clock, built in 1882, boomeranged two years ago. The Bareilly-based contractor vanished with his Rs 9-lakh advance after some initial tinkering. So did 26 of the porcelain digits ? though some of them were mysteriously replaced with plastic replicas ? 20 wheels, the chime hammer, a ladder, the window door and wires.

Neither the Hussainabad Trust, responsible for the tower’s maintenance, nor the district administration can explain the thefts.

Nasir Hussain Naqvi, the trust’s officer on special duty, said no one from the contractor’s company has visited the tower in the past two years.

“Last year, the company informed us that its key man had injured his leg in an accident and could not make it to Lucknow. This year, it said some spare parts needed to be brought from Mumbai, but this could not be done because of the floods,” Naqvi said.

R.A. Maurya, the additional district magistrate (city) who had been assigned to monitor the repairs, blamed district magistrate R.N. Tripathi, who is ex-officio chairman of the trust.

“As far as I know, the repairs were going on,” Maurya said. “But the delay caused by the contractor is a problem. The trust should speed up the process.”

Residents are agitated by the thefts and the neglect.

“I think the authorities don’t want to repair it. In 2001, the trust had announced it was beyond repair and would be dismantled. But this caused a furore and the trust was forced to back off,” said R.K. Hussain, a local archaeologist and campaigner for the Save Lucknow Movement.

“It’s the Big Ben of India. We are shocked and ashamed at the state it is in.”

The tower was erected by the British to mark the arrival of George Cooper, the first lieutenant governor of the United Province of Awadh. It was built by J.W. Benson and designed by R.R. Bayne of Calcutta, who modelled it on the Big Ben, built in 1858.