Rudra Pratap Singh
A sticky note at the entrance of the Old Curiosity Shop in Chennai’s Anna Salai reads: Please switch off your cellular phones, at least inside this shop. Let’s talk to each other. Pretend it’s 1890.
It’s a humid afternoon as I weave through the city’s bustling streets, ticking off tourist spots, when a brick-red building catches my eye. It feels like something out of a JK Rowling novel, an enchanting contrast against the modern chaos surrounding it. Intrigued, I step inside. Before I take you through my conversation with Lateef Mohammed, the shop’s owner, let me share a secret: Lateef travels back in time every day. He does so through the antiques he collects, catching up with bygone eras like old friends. For him, these relics are not mere objects—they are fragments of history, each with a story waiting to be told.
A Legacy Carved in Time
Lateef’s reverence for his collection is almost hereditary. His grandfather, Ghulam Mohammed, arrived in Chennai from Kashmir in the 1940s, looking to explore life beyond Jammu. “At that time, northern India was in turmoil under British rule. Tamil Nadu, in contrast, felt like a golden place,” Lateef shares. Ghulam Mohammed set up a shop selling Kashmiri handicrafts and souvenirs from across India, one of the first of its kind in Tamil Nadu. Foreign visitors adored the exquisite craftsmanship—and the shopkeeper’s rare ability to converse fluently in English.
A decade later, a young Lateef would spend hours at the shop, enchanted by the steady stream of visitors. “What do you like?” they would ask. “Stamps,” he’d reply eagerly. Their advice? “Go to the bank. You’ll find plenty there.” And so began his childhood tradition—waiting near dustbins outside banks, salvaging discarded envelopes with foreign stamps. At home, he would soak them in water, carefully peeling off each stamp to add to his growing collection.
His fascination soon extended beyond stamps. Foreign customers gifted him rare coins, which he treasured. Over time, his passion grew, and the boy collecting stamps and coins became the man curating an entire world of history.
The Old Curiosity Shop: Where Time Stands Still
Each time the door swings open, three things enter—city noise, a gust of wind, and a reminder that I am still in Chennai. Yet, inside, it’s easy to forget. Time bends in this space, where every object whispers tales of the past.
“This isn’t just a shop,” Lateef tells me. “The people who come here are not ordinary customers. They are the curious ones—the ones who want to touch history, to feel its weight, to hear its stories.”
The visitor list is proof enough. The Nehru family, Ustad Zakir Hussain, international cricket teams, Supreme Court and High Court justices, and film stars have all stepped into this time capsule. Lateef welcomes them all, hoping to revive an appreciation for the past, an art he believes is fading.
A Collector’s Journey Through Time
“How did you collect all of this?” I ask, marveling at the shelves teeming with vintage cameras, giant gramophones, a Blickensderfer typewriter, walls adorned with silent clocks, stacks of vinyl records, and sepia-toned photographs.
“Pen pals,” Lateef grins. “In those days, we exchanged more than letters. I swapped stamps, coins, and sometimes even stories with people from around the world.” His passion quickly grew beyond stamps and coins to records, tape recorders, antique cameras, and heirlooms from a different age.
As we talk, he invites me deeper into the shop, into a quarter reserved “only for some.” The treasures here outshine everything else. I run my fingers over a 100-year-old book on poet Mirza Ghalib—possibly the last remaining copy in existence. I see an Indian soldier’s identity card from the British Army, cloth-backed maps of undivided India, royal attire embroidered with real gold filigree, books from the Gutenberg era, handwritten literature dating back 400 years, and first editions of Harry Potter and M.K. Gandhi’s Delhi Diary (1948)—marked at just nine rupees. Each object is a portal to a forgotten time.
As I stand there, surrounded by relics older than most living generations, the weight of history settles on my shoulders. The past is alive here, breathing through the artefacts Lateef has spent a lifetime collecting.
A few hours later, I step out of the shop, reluctant to leave. When I recount my visit to my editor, she asks, “So, you went to an antique shop?”
“No,” I say, smiling. “I made friends with the past.”