These were the 3 Tea Broking companies in Cochin and their teams. 

1. Forbes, Ewart, & Figgis – Oommen Thomas, Tom Peirce Jr., S.A.Dharmaraj, John Partridge, and W.C. Thomas. K R Viswanathan was the Accountant.
2. Carritt Moran – Richard Luff (Dick), Bruno Holloway, and T.K. Madhav
3. J. Thomas & Co – T.C. Satyanath, Prafull Goradia (later replaced by Richard Warren), and Philip John

The start of the Cochin Tea Auctions: The Forbes Story

During World War II the British Government in India had appointed a Tea Inspector to deal with matters related to Tea. His principal task, however, was to fix quotas for export of Tea South Indian teas. This man was Robert Gordon Peirce who later became the founder of Tea Auctions in South India. 

India got her independence on 15^th August, 1947. Robert Peirce started an Auction company on 3^rd July 1947!  He got Forbes & Walker (Colombo), Ewart, Kerr, Hope (who later morphed into Thompson Lloyd, Ewart, London) and A.W.Figgis (Calcutta) to support him as he launched Forbes, Ewart, & Figgis (FEF) in Cochin. Tea Broking is not a capital intensive business. The capital is in the form of human expertise, experience, reputation and connections. The connections (backing) that the Calcutta, Colombo, and London Brokers were to give Forbes, Ewart, and Figgis stood them in good stead and this company was able to hold their premier position for a long time. 

Robert Peirce led the company till the early sixties and then handed over the reins to Oommen Thomas (OT). Oommen’s father was the Head Clerk at Harrisons & Crosfield, the largest plantation company in South India. In the pre Independence days an Indian could largely aspire to become Head Clerk in a British company. Today that would be the equivalent of General Manager. Thomas Sr. wielded even more influence after Independence because of his local connections. 

Oommen Thomas was sent to London for his post graduate studies but had to return early because of a death in the family and his father’s ill health. In 1955 OT returned from London and Robert Peirce invited him to join FEF.

He must have been an outstanding young man for Pierce Sr. to nominate OT as his successor  and not M. A. Chacko who was a senior clerk in the Tea Inspector’s office under Tom Senior. 

(Chacko moved to Coonoor in 1963 to open Forbes & Co (Tea Brokers), and stayed at his post till his demise a decade ago.)

Oommen was sharp, competent and aggressive in business but was very low-key in his personal life. If you ran into him at the Cochin airport and you enquired where was going he’d say he is going for meeting in Bombay. But next day when you put on the TV to watch Wimbledon, it  was quite likely to see him in the front row watching a match on Center Court!

Carritt Moran (CM), who was JT’s closest rival in Calcutta, had the foresight to open a branch in Cochin as early as in 1951!   

The man in charge at CM, Cochin was Dick Luff. He was a lover of Cricket. He was also a lover of those who loved Cricket. Not only was he passionate but was also a good player having opened the bowling for Kerala in the Ranji Trophy a couple of seasons, as reported earlier. T.K.Madhav caught his eye on the Cricket fields and since he also had a first class pedigree was a great catch for Carritts! 

In the course of the next decade CM built up a nice catalogue (list of clients) but made no effort to challenge Forbes’ pre-eminent position.

J. Thomas & Co, as we read earlier came to Cochin in 1964. The man to lead our troops was T.C. Satyanath. He was not the typical mercantile type. His father was the famed educationist named Shankaran Nambiar, Principal of the Maharajas College, Cochin. Today that would be the equivalent of a Vice Chancellor of a University.
Like many academician’s son Sat did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps. His uncle in Delhi was a senior Bureaucrat in the Government and had connections. I too came from an academic background so I resonated with the way Sat went about things. 

Satyanath’s interests were more intellectual than the other two by a mile. And he revelled in it. He made a splash by buying a 1960 model Chevy Impala with exaggerated fins. The other two also had imported cars. Oommen had a Mercedes, while Dick Luff had an old Plymouth. But these seldom came out of their garages while the Impala was seen gliding through the narrow roads of Cochin with Driver Krishnan at the wheel.

At the time the only cars that we could buy in India were the Ambassador (old Morris Oxford), one model of Fiat, and Standard Pennant (and later Standard Herald). Any other make had to be imported and changed hands at a huge premium. So the addition of this large car to the JT fleet raised many eyebrows – including those of his colleagues in Calcutta! But Satyanath couldn’t care less – it was just an addition to his stature. In other words he was diametrically opposite to his business rival, Oommen Thomas of Forbes! 

So these were the three heads of the Tea Broking companies in Cochin.
Their interplay and one-upmanship was fascinating to watch!