Please switch off your cellular phones at least when you are inside this shop. Let us talk to each other. Pretend it’s 1890 — reads a sticky note at the entrance of the Old Curiosity Shop in Chennai’s Anna Salai area.

It’s a humid afternoon and I’m working my way through the tourist spots in the city when a brick-red building catches my attention. It seems willed into existence by JK Rowling herself, its Harry Potter-esque vibe a stark contrast against the bustling metropolitan. I decide to enter.

Before I tell you about my afternoon tête-à-tête with Lateef Mohammed, owner of this marvel in the heart of Chennai, I must let you in on a secret: Lateef makes trips to the past every day.

He does this through the antiques he collects, catching up with bygone eras as one would do with old friends.

Having dedicated the majority of his life-span to this, Lateef’s world has come to revolve around the heirlooms, antiquated objects and one-of-a-kind historical artefacts that deck the shelves and walls of the shop. No price tag can justify their worth. I am stunned. I have just stumbled upon Chennai’s very own Pandora’s Box of history.

“Do you remember the story behind every object here?” I ask Lateef, scanning the room that is bursting at the seams with thousands of artefacts, ranging in size and shape, value and age. These include antique cameras, giant gramophones, a Blickensderfer typewriter, a wall filled with clocks that have ceased to tick — considering their age, they can be forgiven; vinyl records and vintage photographs. These vestiges of the past have a life of their own. If you keep quiet enough you can hear them breathe. Lateef, meanwhile, lets me look around. Once I am done, he looks me in the eye, touches the table wood almost as if taking an........

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