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Wilde dream: Distilling 400 years of East India Company for 200-page fun

Murali Krishnan in London

Antony Wilde, 43, has embarked on an exhausting task. He is trying to recreate the renowned British East India Company, the mammoth trading corporation, which monopolised trade in India in the 17th and 18th centuries before it was absorbed by the Crown in 1873.

As a first step in that direction, he has been commissioned by Harper Collins, the publishing house in Britain, to bring out a glossy coffee table book, commemorating 400 years of the finding of the company.

"It will be the first book (about the company) which will lay emphasis on lavish illustrations and visuals," says Wilde. A resident of Britain, Wilde is not an academic or historian by any definition. What he has is a literary bent of mind, backed with business acumen.

His interest in the Asian sub-continent dates back to 1980 where he spent nine months in the North-West Frontier in Pakistan.

"It started with a boat ride down the Indus River, heading south towards Hyderabad in Sind," he recollects. "It was intended to be a two-week long downward descent but turned out much longer." The sights, sounds and multiple cultures fascinated him and from there began his quest to learn and know more of the region.

His first literary venture was a four-part series on spices, chocolate, tea and coffee brought out in 1995 describing how the items were produced and marketed in the sub-continent.

"This book is obviously a more ambitious project and is going to be an interesting task to pack in so much history as well as make it readable," he says.

But besides the book, expected to be out in October 1999, Wilde's other lofty enterprise is to make the East India Company a modern day firm.

He along with four other friends gained the rights from the College of Arms in Britain to trade in the name in 1994. "It is a licensing and marketing company of which I am a partner," exclaims Wilde.

"We are keen to talk to Indian businessmen and establish business ties to export items," he says. Considering that the East India Company, being the only trading monopoly, wielded considerable influence in the past, Wilde is hopeful that he will be able to win some contracts. "The trading company was well known and many countries have deep memories of its activities."

As an after-thought, he says, "Since markets are more evolved in the West, the East India Company can help potential partners in India or Sri Lanka to market their wares efficiently."

Capitalising on the erstwhile East India Company's name and its connection with India, Wilde hopes to recreate the 'magic' as it were.

"Did you know that Indian pale ale which was drunk by the British in India in the latter half of the 18th century was brewed in taverns in the East End of London?" he queries.

Wilde's company hopes that some businessmen in India could perhaps be interested in manufacturing the ale and exporting it if they knew how it was brewed. "We could do it with more products which have a historical link with the East India Company," he says. He cites another example of Pashmina shawls, a famous Kashmir item.

However, Wilde is keen to correct a deep-seated impression in his glossy and in meetings with business partners that the East India Company was an 'oppressive' regime. "That was a post-1874 view which epitomised the tough character of the company after it began to lose control and was taken over by the Crown," he says. "It had otherwise no territorial ambitions and believed in a freewheeling and buccaneering spirit."

Wilde's company has already begun to look at left-field opportunities. "We are exploring possibilities of developing a telecommunications technology in Russia and Japan," he says. The 400th anniversary of the company will provide the ideal platform, he believes, in some aggressive hard-sell.

The book is expected to be 200 pages and the manuscript should be ready by the end of the year.

He leaves for India this October on a whirlwind tour, covering 18 cities in 26 days. " I have already selected the picture agencies where I hope to pick up some interesting illustrations," he says.

"I am on my own on this and I hope it is interesting as it seems."