Plants and creepers growing on the facade of the Malaysian Industrial Court Building. IT HAS been weeks since the historical giant clock at the Sultan Abdul Samad building in Jalan Raja, Kuala Lumpur stopped ticking. Dubbed Malaysia’s own Big Ben, no one knows exactly when it stopped but this iconic symbol has been a silent witness to many memorable moments of the country’s history, including the Federation of Malaya’s independence from the British Empire on Aug 31, 1957 as well as the Japanese Occupation of Malaya in 1941. The fact that the clock stopped working and its keepers being unable to carry out maintenance work during the pandemic shows the wider impact of the city’s battle against Covid-19.