Their floors last for as long as the buildings in which they are laid. When that kind of staying power spans a century, it spurs justifiable pride. Dilnavaz Variava and her son Firdaus radiate this in their office at Fort, from where he steers the Bharat Floorings and Tiles enterprise, established by Dilnavaz’s father Pherozesha Sidhwa and his nephew Rustom Sidhwa.

In the sleepy beach village of Suvali near Surat, Pherozesha was the fifth of six sons born to Hormusji Fakirji, who worked in a distillery on the Mora coast of Uran. Boats would sail in carrying Bombay picnickers looking forward to the revelry afforded by liquor from local mogras, roses and oranges. The British shutting such breweries to promote their own in 1918 left those factory sheds vacant and fisherfolk without incomes.