Thread by @thekaipullai

If you have ever flown Go Air, on their fuselage you will see the logo of a company, with a ship on it.

If you have ever wondered, what is an 18th Century Ship doing on a 21st century airplane, then it's time for a nice little story

A story involving dowry and an act of piracy.

It all starts with a British dude named Henry Every. And he was a rapacious man. His rapaciousness was so awful, that even the 1800s Englishmen, called him rapacious.

So naturally, he took up a job, where rapaciousness was a virtue.

Banking.

No, not banking.

It was Piracy.

And Henry Every was a notorious pirate. He started his looting career by targeting Spanish Ships. Then one day, he heard that there is a Mughal pilgrim fleet that leaves for Mecca every year, which had more money than England.

Naturally he decided to attack it.

And he did.

What followed was an orgy of rape and murder rarely seen.

They took so much money that it could well be the wealthiest ship ever taken by the pirates. They even took jewels of Aurangzeb’s daughter.

It was a despicable act of barbarity, or for the English, a normal day.

Unfortunately for them, the consequences were far from normal.

When Aurangzeb, heard about this, he decided to avenge with all fury.

He arrested all the Englishmen in their main base of Surat and started marching towards it with the intention of expelling English forever.

Realizing they had messed with the wrong person, the British prostrated to Aurangazed.

They offered him to compensate and capture and hang Every.

To placate him, they launched the largest manhunt in human history till that point in time. And Aurangazeb backed off.

However, what this lead the British to understand, that as long as they were in Surat, they were vulnerable from the Mughals, as well as the rising Marathas.

They decided to shift their main base to some place, where the land-based powers couldn’t reach easily.

Which is when they turned to a place, they had got as dowry in 1534. The islets of Mumbai.

Though the British had their presence in Bombay, it was at this time, they decide to make it their main centre.

But shifting from Surat was also difficult.

Surat had been a maritime center for thousands of years, with a proper ship building industry, docks, etc

It would be very difficult to recreate it in Bombay

And no Surat shipbuilder was ready to relocate to a useless piece of rock in the Arabian sea

Enter Lowjee Nusserwanjee

He was not a shipbuilder by birth, but used to work as a foreman for another ship builder. He was became friendly with the British, during the construction of a ship called Queen.

So the British decided to offer him a chance to move to Bombay, which he took with both hands.

He moved with some of his carpenters, and took over the nascent ship building infra in Bombay.

And he built some awesome ships. Slowly the ships built by Nusserwanjee started gaining reputation for longevity and taking a lot of punishment in battle and still remaining afloat.

With steady contracts from EIC, Lowjee Nusserwanjee built Asia’s first dry dock in 1750 and then laid the foundation of Mazgaon dock in 1774.

But Lowjee Nusserwanjee name was big and complicated. So he decided to go back to his native language, Gujarati for a nice name.

Both for his company and his family.

Now, The Gujarati name for a boat builder, was Wadia.

So he called his company, which he started in 1736, as the Wadia group, and the family, the Wadia family.

Wadia group became the pre-eminent ship builders not only in India, but across the world.

From 1736 to 1884, the Wadia group built more than 334 ships, with customers ranging from the British Navy, the EIC and the Nizam of Hyderabad.

They built the ship on which the American National anthem was written and HMS Trincomalee, a ship which is still afloat, 210 years later. And when the era of steam came, the Wadias were first to adapt.

His Grandson, Ardaseer Cusatjee, was one of pioneers of steam engine in India

For a long time, he was the only guy who could repair steam engines, in this part of the world. But there was another unintended consequence to their steam engine expertise.

In 1879, There was another Parsee Textile Magnate, Dinshaw Petit, who was setting up a textile mill.

So he asked the Wadia family for help, to select the correct machinery from England.

One of the heirs, Nowrosjee Wadia, went on this supposedly pointless errand.

But when he saw the sophistication of these steam operated machines, he decided to have the piece of the textile pie

The company he started, Bombay Dyeing. (He even started Century mills, which was sold later)

Using their expertise in Steam machinery, Bombay Dyeing quickly became one of the most prosperous and the largest mills in India.

Which became the foundation, of the Wadia empire.

The Wadia empire today stretches across textiles, trading, biscuits& Cricket teams. They even had a studio, which gave India’s first action queen, “Fearless Nadia”.

So when the Wadia group wanted a logo, they decided to honour their original business, that of Ship Building.

That’s why you see the logo of a ship on an airplane. Today Wadia group is one of the most prosperous business groups in India. And India's oldest Business house.

But it all kind of started, with an act of Piracy.

And some dowry.

For people who are wandering what the wadia group logo looks like.. Here.

Here is a nice paper written on the entire history of the Wadia Family.

academia.edu/29813406/Shipb…

Plus some other links for your reference

academia.edu/29706591/RIDIN…

zoroastrian.org.uk/vohuman/Articl…