It's sometime during our chat with the gregarious men of the Kapadia family on a Friday evening, that a connection has been established between everyone sitting in the room. The quintet, all alumni of St Xavier's High School, Fort, have just informed this writer that their school, which is a few months shy of turning 150, initially ran out of a rented home called the Glass House, on Cavel Street, back in 1860. Known as Kalbadevi School then - because of its location - it moved nine years later to Dhobi Talao, where the glorious neo-Gothic campus sits today. "Or else, the school would have been in my neighbourhood," I tell them.

The Kapadias, residents of Babulnath in South Mumbai, share a learning legacy, which only a few can boast of. Since 1915, three generations of the family have been associated with St Xavier's school and college, both of which celebrate their sesquicentenaries in January. "The values you learn there, stay with you forever," says 84-year-old Dilip Kapadia, the eldest of the five members, from the batch of 1952 at the school. The sentiment is unanimous, and is oft-repeated during our conversation.