Mention Ralli’s to anyone in Calcutta today and they will
think of the sherbet and syrup making company. But Ralli Singh Arora who started that Ralli’s in 1898 in Calcutta, has no connection whatsoever with the
Ralli’s building that stands today on Hare Street. The story of the company
begins in 1815, in the Aegean sea, in the port of Chios, then part of the
Ottoman Empire. The Ralli Brothers, a family of Greek merchants began importing
corn, timber and hemp from the Black Sea to Leghorn on the Ligurian Sea, and
from there to England, under the protection of the British fleet, stationed in
Naples. By 1823, they had set up shop in England, expanding to Tabriz, Iran, by
1837. But important changes had happened in another part of the world by then.
The East India Company’s monopoly in the Indian trade had been abolished, and Pandias
Stephen Ralli, realizing that that’s where the future lay, decided to expand to
India in 1851.
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| Ralli Brothers, Hare Street |
