Meet Mohan Singh, Octogenarian Who Repairs Eyeglasses With Simple Tools & A Legacy Of Over 20 Years

Many small crafts in the country are considered dying arts, with people shifting to advanced spaces and nobody being left behind to carry on the craftsman legacy. Countless people still hold on to a craft passed down to them, and these people often practice the same in the shadows of small corner shops familiar only to the residents. They are the lost treasures of the country who continue to sustain a dying art form by the little means possible to them. One such individual is Mohan Singh, an octogenarian who fixes eyeglasses that even the top technologically-backed eyeglass stores cannot.

A Small Shop That Fixes All Eyeglasses

Mohan Singh runs a humble eyeglass repair shop, which would be missed if blinked, near the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Charging a nominal fee, the shop preserves its legacy of over three to four decades. It has no fancy equipment that one would come across in today's technologically advanced shops and simply represents an antiquity cherished by the city.

Regardless of the way it looks on the outside, the shop is home to Singh, a skilled craftsman who repairs any and every glass that is brought to him. A Twitter thread posted by a user named Love Pannu introduced netizens to the remarkable craftsmanship of the senior citizen. Mr Pannu had brought a pair of sunglasses from Melbourne, which had lost one of its screws when he came to Amritsar. He visited many of the top glass stores in the city in a fix to repair the new sunglass. Most of them could not do so, and finally, one person directed him to the small old shop run by Mohan Singh.

The shop with no name board was known to almost every other native. Before Pannu knew it, Singh fixed the sunglasses and charged him a small fee of ₹50. Pannu was told that if the old man couldn't fix the glasses, then nobody else could. Surely enough, the glass that was not repairable in the high-end shops was fixed in a matter of minutes by the old man. Pannu put across the tweet to make sure that the artist gets the due recognition and tell the world about Mohan Singh and his small repair shop in Amritsar.

I bought my sunglasses from Melbourne and somehow lost one screw when i came to amritsar .I went to top glasses stores in amritsar but no one was able to fix it . Then a guy at trillium mall asked me to go to very old shop in hall bazar . (1) pic.twitter.com/aQLQXaITa3

— Love Pannu (@singhpannu87) January 17, 2023

Keeping The Craft Alive

After the tweet went viral, several media reports were intrigued about the humble shop in Amritsar. A report by the Indian Express revealed that the artist, in his late 80s, was from a family of goldsmiths that lived in Lyallpur (Faisalabad of Pakistan) before the partition. In 1947 they moved to Amritsar and established the shop, and today Mohan Singh carries on its legacy. He conveyed that he picked up the work more as a hobby after having settled both his children.

The tweet, which introduced Singh to the netizens, garnered over 80,000 views and thousands of reactions. As comments continued to pour in under the tweet, many users shared words of appreciation for the elderly who continues to keep the craft alive even at this age. A user commented, "It's so heart warming…older generation has skills that I think once they pass will be lost forever, due to our inability or interest to learn from them. My mom excels at so many crafts that I feel like I will never master."

Love this! It’s so heart warming … older generation has skills that I think once they pass will be lost forever, it’s our inability or interest to learn from them. My mom excels at so many crafts that I feel like I will never master 😕.

— miss kaur (@bookd4life) January 19, 2023

Few other users were also able to identify Singh, who's been running the shop in the locality for over 20 years. The tweet received largely positive reactions and brought about respect toward the artist.

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