Nedou's Hotel in Lahore. Photo - Alamy

 

It must be baffling for our readers to think what relationship does Croatia have with Kashmir and India’s multibillion dollar worth hotel industry?! How does a far flung country off the Adriatic coast fit into the Indian Subcontinent’s scheme of things?

Croatia, a country which made headlines especially in the last 3 decades due to its internal political turmoil and civil wars, was ruled by Austro-Hungarian power from 1815 to 1918 and by Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1991 until Yugoslavia disintegrated into multiple independent countries including Croatia.

A Slovak architect, Michael Adam Nedou reached Bombay on the invitation from a Maharaja of one of the many princely states in Gujrat in 19^th century. He was born and raised in Dubrovnik off Dalmatian coast and was of Slovak nationality. Upon reaching India in 1862, he initially settled in Bombay. In Bombay, he fell in love with Jesse Maria who was the sister of his British Navy friend and ultimately married. The couple went on to have 6 daughters and 3 sons. After having 6 daughters, their eldest son Michael Henry Nedou was born in 1877 in Pune which was a matter of joy and pride for the entire family. The Slovak British couple went on to have two more sons, William Arthur and Walter Douglas was born short after.

 

Michael Adam Nedou and Jesse Maria seated in the center with their sons and daughters. Photo - Nyla Ali Khan

 

Michael Adam Nedou’s great great granddaughter Nyla Ali Khan who is a Research Scholar herself and settled in Oklahoma in U.S.A. has penned a book on her maternal grandmother Akbar Jahan’s family and life in Kashmir, “The Life of a Kashmiri Woman: Dialectic of Resistance and Accommodation”. She gave a detailed account of her maternal grandma’s ancestors. But how Michael Adam Nedou landed up in Kashmir?!

 

Michael Adam Nedou  Photo - Nedou's Gulmarg

 

Michael Adam Nedou entered hotel and hospitality industry with the acquisition of Sind Punjab Hotel in the port of Karachi. He built the courtly and graceful Nedou’s Hotel in Lahore in 1870’s. Later, he and his heirs built the Nedou’s Hotel in Gulmarg in Kashmir in 1888. It was eventful as it gave Gulmarg a huge recognition as a major skiing destination which is still retained today. The last one Nedou’s Hotel in Srinagar in Kashmir was opened in 1900. This one was Srinagar’s first All Day European Hotel. It had a small bakery attached to it. All the three Nedou’s Hotels in Lahore, Gulmarg and Srinagar were symbols of heightened colonial luxury, European warmth, cuisine and hospitality. The properties were often visited by crème de la creme of the then contemporary society from men and women in power, Indian, European, Royal dignitaries, Aristocrats, Industrialists. These 3 hotels from Nedou family went on to become Asia’s first organized hotel group or chain of hotels and was also India’s first certainly. All the 3 properties had European interiors in tandem with local culture, heritage and geography.

 

Nedou's Hotel, Gulmarg. Source - Nedou's Gulmarg

 

What was the fate of India’s first organized hospitality group?!

 

Nedou’s Hotel was located in Lahore which was their flagship hotel as well as entire Lahore’s, in Gulmarg and Srinagar in Kashmir. In 1947, John Nedou who was the grandson of Michael Adam Nedou from his second son William, was unceremoniously murdered in the Nedou’s Hotel in Lahore which was a huge mystery. It compelled the family to sell the Lahore hotel and move to India. The other two Nedou’s hotel though survived the tryst of the times. Nedou’s Hotel in Srinagar was closed down in 1989 after the militancy attack and was occupied by the Indian Army till 2010. Now efforts are being made to revive the hotel with the help of the three decade old contract of ITC. The 3^rd hotel located in Gulmarg in Kashmir is still operational and maintains the timeless glory of the past with serenity of the present.

 

Advertisement of Nedou's Hotel before 1947. Source - Ebay

 

 What happened to the descendants of Michael Adam Nedou in India?!

 

Michael Adam Nedou was Slovak from Croatia and his wife Jesse Maria was British. Their eldest son Michael Henry Nedou popularly known as Harry Nedou created the first ripple in the family. He fell in love with a woman named Mir Jaan who was of Rajput Gujjar descent and was from landed gentry in Gulmarg. She saved him from a black bear attack in Gulmarg and they got married. Harry Nedou converted to Islam and was renamed as Sheikh Ahmed Hussein. This inter religious and inter racial marriage was unacceptable to the entire Nedou kinsfolk. As a result, Michael Adam and Jesse Maria never whole heartedly accepted Mir Jaan and her children. Mir Jaan, despite this isolation was lovingly called Ranijee by all, hold her ground and her expanding family. Both Harry Nedou and Mir Jaan were pious Muslims and ensured that their kids were equally religious and pious like them. Sheikh Abdullah in his autobiography Atish-E-Chinar recalls how Mir Jaan was strong, feisty and yet religious along with the philanthropic nature of Harry Nedou. They went on to have many sons and one daughter. The only daughter of Harry Nedou and Mir Jaan was Akbar Jahan who went on to marry a middle class rebel of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah who later on became the Chief Prime Minister of the princely state of Kashmir as well as 3 times Chief Minister of the Indian Jammu & Kashmir. The legacy of Sheikh Abdullah or Sher – I – Kashmir, was carried forward by his son Dr Farooq Abdullah, one of his 5 kids and his grandson Omar Abdullah. It was the sons of Harry Nedou who inherited the reins of the remaining family business of Nedou’s Hotels in India. The current ones are run by their descendants from Harry Nedou’s side.

 

Harry Nedou with his wife Mir Jaan or Ranijee and their kids including their only daughter Akbar Jahan standing at the extreme left. Photo - Nyla Ali Khan

 

Akbar Jahan standing seen with her husband Sheikh Abdullah, seated, both parents of Dr Farooq Abdullah. Photo - Ebay

 

Two more brothers of Harry Nedou Walter and William stayed back in India but died without any legal heir. Their six sisters and their descendants went back to England and Australia.

Harry Nedou, the famous of all the Nedous in India was also a mysterious person. He left behind an air of intrigue and suspense behind him even today which many do not knows. As he was the owner of the iconic and plush Nedou’s Hotels in Kashmir, he came in touch with the most elite names of Indian Subcontinent of the time. But that is entirely a different story altogether.

 

Akbar Jahan, only daughter of Harry Nedou and mother of Dr Farooq Abdullah. Photo - Nyla Ali Khan

 Salima Nedou, Akbar Jahan’s brither’s wife and Farooq Abdullah’s maternal aunt or Maami recalls in her unpublished “Michael Nedou was the pioneer of the hotel industry in India and he laid the first stone in the splendid structure of the country’s hotels. His name is woven forever in the tapestry of our tourism”.

 

Nedou's Hotel in Srinagar in 1960's. Source - Google Image

 

Main source - Nyla Khan, THE LIFE OF A KASHMIRI WOMAN, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018