I am afraid I have to start this blog with an apology as I may have got my dates wrong. Govind Jauhar (GKJ) sent me a couple of photos of a party that Promie and he threw for Richard Warren’s farewell! That meant that Richard was in Cochin when I returned from Calcutta, since I am also in these pictures!

The other error was an omission – GKJ and Promie were in Cochin for the JT office opening. I have added a couple of pictures to ‘Inauguration of the new Nilhat House’ page which you can view here!

While I often do some cross-checking to get my facts right, it is a challenge to be precise about events that took place fifty years earlier! I am not working from any notes- just memory. I would be grateful to you for help with dates and snippets that would add to these stories.

Meanwhile at J.Thomas..

Though GKJ was the first JT executive I met in Calcutta in 1964, he was our senior-most Per Pro, a rank just below Director. He was friendly enough but seemed a bit aloof towards the juniors. Though I was at Thomas, Cumberlege & Inskipp when he was the senior JT man there, it was only after Promie and he arrived in Cochin that we got to know one another well. We became close and it was a great couple of years thereafter!

They were a sociable couple and the first thing they did on arrival was to throw a farewell party for Richard. Having heard of the fancy dress party that Richard and I organised a few months earlier, they decided on a Hawaiian Nite theme. This showed GKJ’s pragmatism as the Lungi was the easiest attire to assemble in Kerala. A Lungi is a colourful 2.25 metre cloth, which the Malayali men wore for physical work in the fields. It was stitched and joined together at the ends making it more secure! Almost all Malayali men, rich or poor, wore one at night as it was roomy and comfortable to sleep in. Many expatriates threw away their pyjama suits and stitched themselves a few Lungis. I suspect they took some back when they returned home to the UK.

While some guests had found the earlier Fairly Tale theme challenging, almost all the men turned out in their most colourful Lungis for the Hawaiian Nite. Some lady guests tied their Lungis in innovative ways and added to the colour and gaiety of the evening. Govind and Promie had Leis ready for each guest to wear, and the Hawaiian ensemble was complete! The accompanying pictures show the mood of the party and the fun everyone had. In one fell swoop the Jauhars announced their arrival on the Cochin scene!

Back Row: K G Nanda, Promie Jauhar, Cocker Shaw , Bruno Holloway, Nobby Sethi, Neil Gray, Dick Luff, (someone’s guest)
Middle Row: Bhavani Narayanan, Leonara Luff, Philip John, Govind Jauhar (GKJ), Sunanda Roy, Peter Kelly
Front Row: Tarun Roy, Richard Warren, Sid Grey, John Tatchel, Gillian Gray, and Deb Guha

Philip John, Nobby Sethi, Govind & Promie Jauhar, Richard Warren, and Sudha Satyanath

Deb Guha had come from Calcutta to hold charge of Liptons while John Struthers was on furlough. Many Englishmen had returned home but there were still a few left in Cochin. At Harrisons & Crosfields Tea department K.G. Nanda had replaced Jimmy Irens. Peter Shaw, known as Cocker to his friends, was Matheson Bosanquet’s the head of tea buying. There was something endearing about him but he was quite the tiger in the auction room when he was buying for Typhoo!
Neil Grey continued to manage Brooke Bond. Neil and Gillian were a popular couple. Nobby Sethi, was a bachelor when he first came to Cochin as Assistant Tea Buyer at Brooke Bond. He did not speak much but would come up with a sarky (sarcastic) remark out of the blue, which had us all in splits.
Carritt Moran’s Dick and Leonara Luff were still there, as was John Tactchell of Pierce Leslie. Bruno Holloway, Sid Gray, were part of the younger lot who stayed behind in Cochin.

At Finlays tea buying department Mehelli Chapkhanawalla had replaced Derek Bobb. Mehelli was Parsee and his wife Rinchin was Tibetan. They had two small children, Aiesha and Nilofer. I made contact with Aiesha a year ago – she now lives in France, while Rinchin lives with Nilofer in the US.

Normally, Indian bureaucrats do not freely mix with people from the business world. However, the arrival of Tarun Roy and his wife, Sunanda to Cochin was a breath of fresh air and we welcomed them with open arms. They in turn, were delighted to live with us and have a tipple once in a while. Tarun had taken charge as the Asst. Commissioner at the Cochin Customs. About twenty years later he had risen to be appointed Chairman of the  Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, Government of India!

A few expatriates like Richard Warren wore shorts to the office while the Indian executives wore trousers. K.G. Nanda broke that reticence and wore white shorts and stockings to work. He was used to wearing them because he was a Tea Planter before signing up to be a tea taster. GKJ, never one to be left behind, had a word with Satyanath and started wearing shorts and stockings to work. This started a trend of sorts in Cochin and I too had a pair of shorts stitched. However, this practice never really caught on.

Radhika, Govind and Promie’s pretty daughter was six years old and too young to join the festivities. “My parents were always having parties on the terrace!” she told me, recalling her first spell in Cochin. She was to return as a JT wife on marrying Ashok Batra. She later followed her mother’s footsteps as the Burra Memsahib of J. Thomas & Co at Calcutta and acquitted herself well.

I asked Radhika recently what else she remembered. She said, “I remember Mom and Masi sitting on the staircase and gup-shupping (chatting) with you every day.” Yes, I remember – the staircase was like the least formal setting for a chat! Nira, Promie’s sister had come to Cochin on holiday. The three of us would listen to Trini Lopez’ Lemon Tree and The Beatles many times over and talk about everything but nothing in particular!

We opened a Badminton Court at No.2 Napier Street, which became a popular meeting place for the younger Cochin folk.

Promie would ask me to warn her when my grandmother was to visit me. My granny would supervise the frying of fish – a favourite of mine. The coconut oil odour is strong and probably unpleasant to the uninitiated, but fried fish in coconut oil tastes divine to a true Malayalee. So, on days I had fried fish for lunch the Jauhars were sure to be out enjoying the countryside!

At J. Thomas our team was now T.C. Satyanath, G. K. Jauhar and I.  Our catalogue had grown. When JT started in 1964 we had taken on a clerk named Sivaram from Carritt Moran’s sampling department. He was young, resourceful and ambitious. From being a cog in the wheel at CM he was asked to run the JT sampling department and look after the Bazzar Buyers, but he did not taste tea or auction it – an unfulfilled desire that burned inside of him.

There was now a Dakota flight from Cochin to Coimbatore. This cut down a 5 hour torturous drive from Cochin to Coimbatore, to just 40 minutes. My car would leave in the morning with my suitcase packed by Xavier. The Cochin airport was on Willingdon Island just 15 minutes away from the JT office. I would send someone from the office, he would check me in, get my Boarding Pass and call me when the flight was announced! There was none of this ‘you have to check-in in person, show your ID, go through Security check’ nonsense we now have!  I once missed the flight because I was late in getting to the airport! My distraught driver called me after the last passenger had alighted in Coimbatore. I asked him to find a hotel for the night and meet the next day’s flight. Satyanath was not pleased and so I made sure I was 30 minutes early for the next day’s flight!

The norm was for my driver to collect me at the airport and stop by at Coimbatore Club for refreshments. At least on one occasion the convivial spirit at the Bar caused me to arrive at Hampton Hotel, Coonoor just before break of dawn, causing a delay in the start of the day’s proceedings!

I would spend two or three days touring the Nigiris, calling on our clients and meeting ‘prospective’ ones before returning to Cochin. There was an unwritten rule among the Tea Brokers, that one Broker would not solicit business from the clients of a fellow Broker. We therefore had to be innovative about how this was done. Inviting a prospective client to a large party was acceptable, though landing up at his factory early next morning was not! We were quite genteel in that day and age. I don’t think anyone bothers about such things now. The soliciting is probably more innovative.

The familiarity with the Nilgiris District would stand me in good stead a few years later when we would make Coonoor our home for almost four decades!