Calling ex Virbaijeeites

With a compilation of 10,283 records alumni of the Bai Virbaijee Soparivala High School (BVS) in Karachi can be traced back from the present to the year 1884, notes What’s On (October 2005), the newsletter of the Karachi Zarthosti Banu Mandal. The site allows ex-students to add their pictures of what they looked like then and what they look like now as well as other pictorial memorabilia. With a complete history of the School, the sound of the School song and the School band is "guaranteed to bring back massive amounts of nostalgia,” notes the publication. The search capability has a practical side too: people can network and fulfill each other’s business needs.

Mistry: crea­-ting a community network

The website, www.bvsvirbaijeeites. com, is the creation of Afshad Mistri, the great-great-grandson of the founder of the school, Shapurji Soparivala and was launched the day his mother, Deenu Mistri retired after serving the school for 55 years, 32 as principal.

With a degree in computer science from the University of Houston, Texas, Mistri, who is director of marketing at a computer company in the Silicon Valley, California, mentions in his e-mail to Parsiana, "My entire family has been educated at BVS. Because it is the only Parsi boys’ school in Karachi, most Parsi boys are encouraged to attend this school ... Today my cousin Maj Gen (Retd) Kaizad M. Soparivala is the chairman and looks after the overall progress of the School.”

Apart from connecting ex-students spread all over the world, Mistri also aims to show the rich heritage of Parsi history in Pakistan and the legacy his family has left behind.