Ramanujan and the city's clocks

A. K. Ramanujan (1929-1993) was a leading Indian poet in English, famous for his translations of ancient Tamil poetry. He was a professor of linguistics at the University of Chicago, with a deep interest in anthropology and folklore.

His poem 'Time and Time Again' asks us to listen to the clock towers of an old, well-run city, striking their gongs day and night.

No two clocks agree. Each one runs a little apart from the rest: its bronze voice is deeper or lighter, and its chimes come in a different order each half-hour.

The differences come from small accidents: in the metal, in a clock-maker's shaking hand in Switzerland, and in the distances between the towers, fixed by the whims of the donors who built them.

The towers belong to Hindus, Christians and Muslims, with their long feuds and their seasonal alliances. The clocks become a picture of a city of many communities, living together but never quite in time with one another.