Clocks Like Horses

In the story Clocks like Horses the main character takes his pocket watch to an old watch repairman who used to be a sailor. When the main character reaches his hotel room he meets a boy who asks the man if he is Indian and denies that he himself (the boy) is Indian. I am not sure why being Indian would be such a special thing. Perhaps this was a time where everyone was labeled based on their nationality. When the man takes his watch to the repairman he is told the story of the repairman’s life as a sailor. The old man used to be a syce, or a stable boy and groom, and he told the man about his travels from port to port trading horses and having to sneak behind the eyes of the Turks who wanted the horses for war. He also tells of the tragic end of his horse trading days, when the ship wrecked on rocks and the horses all drowned. I think that the significance of the clocks being set to times around the world represents a unique rhythm that reminds the old man of the horses and the noises from his sailing days. The rhythms of the clocks might create a sense of peace for the old man. The end of the story was difficult to understand because it repeats exactly what is said in the first paragraph of the story. I do not know if the repetition of the paragraph is supposed to prove that his prediction was correct or if it was somehow tied in with the clock theme. Perhaps the mechanical operations of the clocks is supposed to represent how society functioned, it was always predictable. In the story society is always predictable in that people expect it to label everyone.