Golden Jubilee of class of 1976/1978

[Raymond Rebello]

St Vincent’s Class of 1976 (SSC) / 1978 (HSC) celebrated their Golden Jubilee in Pune on December 18th, 19th and 20th, 2025.

115 classmates participated in one way or the others. There was a school tour including photo ops with librarian Nirmala Braganza Kapadia, as well as the Riklin Cup which St.Vincent’s just won 10 days earlier.

The program was kicked off by The Vincent’s Brass Band playing the National and School anthems. 

An attractive commemorative Coffee Table Book was launched by the Principal Fr Titus Thangaraj sj. 

This contains vintage photographs with names to the faces as well as 65 candid ‘Missing Years ‘ autobiographies. 

Fr Titus spoke about the strong love that Vincentians have for their alma mater.

We were thrilled to host 10 teachers and staff from back in the day - two of whom travelled from out of town specially for this event. The classmates also visited home bound teachers. All teachers were showered with gratitude and affection as well as a gift bag.

The family members of the 35 classmates who have passed away were invited to attend to the event and/or provide a video tribute. A touching photo display titled ‘Gone but not forgotten’ made sure these classmates were part of the celebrations.

Various social outreach programs undertaken by the classmates demonstrated the Vincentian spirit of ‘Dare, Do and Win’ as well as the Jesuit spirit of ‘Magis’ which seek deeper meaning and social impact in all actions.

A sumptuous dinner to suit every diet and palate was served to all participants and volunteers.

Special T Shirts and Caps were made to order and distributed to classmates and guests.

The proceedings showed that neither time nor distance has diminished the bonhomie and camaraderie amongst old classmates and teachers 

Here’s to the Class of 1976/1978. Vincenti Dabitur!!

[from Kieran Gonsalves]

*Class of 1976/1978 GJ Group photo at Gulati Hall on 20, December 2025.* 

_Sitting L>R_: Stanley Coutinho, Mrs Nirmala Braganza Kapadia, Mrs Manju Gotpagar, Mrs Namu Lokhandwalla, Mrs Chandralekha Lagad,Mrs Vicki Mendonca D’Lima, Principal Fr Titus Thangaraj sj, Vice Principal Fr Raja sj, Altaf Sayyad, Hemant Sathe, Mrs Romaldine Braganza, Ms Marie Coutinho, Mrs Philomena Pinto, Ms Martina Coutinho 

_Standing 1st row from front L>R_: Pradip Gurnani, Madhusudhan Poduval, Germaine Albuquerque, Mrs Barbara Wilson Braganza, Hillary Rodrigues, Nilesh Patil, Azim Wickar,  Sunil Karambelkar, Zubeir Sheikh, Mukesh Oza, Kisan Patellu, Anthony D’Cruz, Shabbir Jarwala, Rajendra Wable, Vikram Kering, Vincent Kedari

_Standing 2nd row from front L>R_: Mohammed Tambuwalla,< gap> Kieran Gonsalves, Edwin DSliva, Alexander John, <Gap>, Yusuf Vapra, Vilas Shetty, Kevin Mendonca, Yazdi Irani

_Standing 3rd row from back L>R_: Sanjay Pote, Niyan Joshi, Kanhaiyalal Chug, Suhail Ansari, Francis Ferrao, Sudhir Ghate, Sameer Kher, Mukesh Vanvari, Subhash Bijlani, Aref Sheikh, Suresh Rathod, Clifford Periera, Magnus Lemos, Coover Daruwalla,  Lawrence Morais, Sanjeev Lokapur, Paresh Khatri 

_Standing 2nd row from back L>R_: Somnath Hegde, Amol Athalye, Mahesh Ramchandani, Sanjeev Javale, Rajeev Nanda, Ajay Gupta, Harish Sadhwani, Bipin Kochar, Pawan Bhalla, Joseph Raj, Neville Fernandes, Peter Manuel, Orlando Vaz

 _Far back row standing L>R_: Nisar Sayed, Meherban Irani, Sunil Patil, Praful Talera, Qusai Kachwala, Pradip Thakur, Ashish Deshpande, Rakesh Sanghavi, Rajeev Shrivastava, Raghu Iyengar, Suhas Joshi