Whenever Mahurat trading takes place on Diwali night in Delhi, one is reminded of the fall of the House of Joanides, a Greek mill owning family. According to papers left behind by father, Antonius Joanides came to India from the Levant in 1801. That was 62 years after the sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah, who took away the fabulous Kohinoor diamond, along with the fabled Peacock Throne from the then Mughal emperor, Mohammad Shah. Before that a Jewish diamond merchant, Sarmad had come to the Capital after trading in Thatta (Sind) in search of precious stones and his gay friend Abhai Chand, the son of a bullion merchant. In similar fashion, the young Joanides also came, lured by Delhi’s antique gems and jewellery.
But while trying to find a foothold in Delhi, he “enlisted with the British forces and, fighting under the command of Lord Combermere, won the distinction of being the first member of the assault party to enter in 1826 the stronghold of Bharatpur (famous for its ‘mud’ fort) that had defied all onslaughts, including the ones by the celebrated general Lord Lake. Joanides was of course decorated for his bravery. When order was restored Joanides, who had adopted the Anglicized name of Anthony John, set up his business and soon became famous as a diamond merchant and mill owner.
On his death one of his sons, Nicholas succeeded him and renovated the family’s spinning and weaving mill, established in 1887. He was succeeded by one of his nine children, Sir Edwin, who set up mills in Delhi, Agra and Lucknow. He had a private apartment in Hyde Park, London, while his brother, Sir George John had a palatial house in Rome which was later sold to King Amanullah of Afghanistan. In 1920, Sir Edwin lost a fortune in a night of gambling at Monte Carlo. After that he lived on the generosity of his friend, the Maharaja of Gwalior till his death in 1935. His brother, Sir George and Major Ulysses John ran the business. The family’s fortunes began to decline in 1946, when the assets were divided and Ronald E. John, Esquire, moved to the U.S., where he became a “cotton king”. Countess Doris Marzano di Sessa, Sir George’s daughter, and her brothers, Capt Ivan John and Maurice John then became the owners. The family in its heyday had permanently reserved rooms for guests in the Swiss, Cecil and Maidens hotels in the Civil Lines and Royal Hotel at Fatehpuri and, also in Simla and Lahore.
The fall of the John family actually began (so say insiders) when the company’s shares fell on a Diwali night during the symbolic Mahurat trading, that turned out to be a bad omen and led to sibling rivalry. The Delhi Stock Exchange had been newly established then. As fate would have it, the mills did not prosper after that Diwali day.
Finally Johns Mills passed on to a court receiver, who was faced with the task of settling debts and the claims of the employees and big traders who had stood by the mills all along. As often happens in such cases, a Shylockian complex took possession of the creditors and a historic institution that had no equal in the country at that time, just crumbled away. One remembers that things went so badly for the family that it was reduced to short commons and, from luxury cars its members began travelling in rickshaws.
Earlier, when the body of the Countess’ grandmother was exhumed and taken out from the Cathedral transept for reburial in the family memorial, the rumour went that the real reason for the exhumation was that a rare diamond of great value had been buried along with the body and the family wanted to take possession of it.
This Diwali when Delhi was at its dazzling best, one had to tell an excited youngster that even that did not compare with the Diwali of the Johns, when their mills’ complex glittered like a bride and their ladies came tripping majestically in bejewelled costumes. One of them died in Smyrna, Turkey, in an air crash in the second decade of the 20th century. The accident made international news as it related to mill owners whose quotations then ruled the stock exchanges, Mahurat trading or not.
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