Time stands still for Odhavji Raghavji, the ‘father of wall clocks’

“Like some pilgrim
Who learns to transcend
Learns to live as if each step was
the end…”

Rush may have sung these lines for their album, but every word aptly describes the pioneering entrepreneur from Gujarat, Odhavji Raghavji Bhalodiya (Patel), who was a pathfinder and a rebel of sorts. However, ending an enterprising chapter on Thursday afternoon, the world’s largest wallclock maker, farmer, teacher, social visionary and the man who brought Morbi on the global map, passed away at 81 years of age.

After surviving on ventilation for almost a month, Patel, more popularly known as Odhavji, breathed his last at around 2.30 pm at his residence in Morbi. His last rituals will be performed on Friday. Chairman of Ajanta Group, manufacturing wall clocks under the brand name Ajanta, is survived by four sons and two daughters.

About 51 years back, Odhavji founded his company of watches — Ajanta Transistor Clock Manufacturing — with a mere capital investment of Rs1.5 lakh in 1961. Today, with the turnover of more than Rs1,000 crore, and sold under the brand names of Ajanta, Orpat and Oreva, Odhavji’s clocks are time keepers in over 40-odd countries across the globe. The third generation of Odhavji has entered into the business which has now diversified into making telephones, lighting solutions including CFLs, vitrified tiles, digital watches, e-bikes and several electronic and electrical products.

Odhavji, who was known for his immense respect for women, set up examples than mere precepts. He was the flag-bearer for women empowerment by making his factory an all-women affair. Even the drivers employed to ferry the workers to the factory are women! Of the total employee strength of Ajanta Group of up to 10,000, Odhavji employed more than 5,500 women in the rolls.

Memories of Odhavji’s wife, Reva, who passed away 12 years back was kept alive through his relentless environmental work.

Odhavji planted banyan trees in her name in nearly 700 villages of Gujarat.

After completing BSc and BEd from Shamaldas College in Bhavnagar, the ‘father of wall clocks’ as he is dubbed, started career as math and science teacher in VC School in Morbi, a job which he served for three decades. He lived in a rented house and never asked for help from anyone despite his meager income of Rs150 per month, which was too small to meet expenses of a family of eight people.

The teacher, driven by his entrepreneurial spirit, started a small cloth shop in Morbi, to sustain his family’s needs. This continued to work for a while, till he launched his clock industry in 1961 with 16 partners. And true to his enterprising spirits, Odhavji soon discontinued the conventional method of making clocks and started an automatic plant in 1989. Within a year, in 1990, he made Ajanta Group the largest wall clock company in the world. However, at the age of 73, around 1998, Odhavji, who harboured ‘giving it back to the country’ policy, gave up on his active business life to launch the OR Patel Charitable Trust. This trust ran a huge campaign on well recharging, khet talavadi and building check dams. A man with a purpose, Odhavji had also participated briefly in Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement and for the Lokpal Bill in 2011.