Former head of the department of English at Elphinstone College Dr Soonu Kapadia (pictured) who passed away on December 28, 2021 at age 80, taught English literature to generations of students. She was also acting principal of the College, noted The Indian Express of December 29. Kapadia began her career at Sydenham College and also taught at Government Law College. 
After her retirement, she taught at Cathedral and John Connon School for nearly two decades. She was often sighted on the road outside the Parsiana office (the School is across the road) scurrying along, a pile of books in the crook of her arm.
"She was always running down the corridors (of Elphinstone College),” recalled her colleague Dr Shireen Vakil. "She was one of a kind… She gave of herself to her students in a way I have not seen often,” Vakil noted. "Her scholarship was very deep… She loved to take a contrary point of view… (She was) very considerate and kind to anyone she knew was in less fortunate circumstances.” Vakil recalled that Kapadia supported a bright student from Nepal financially and provided him a home till he found a place of his own in Bombay. "I later found he had named his daughter Zoonu” as a tribute to his benefactor, noted Vakil.
"She was my professor of English at Elphinstone College when I was a bachelor of arts student from 1975-77 and we have been close friends ever since,” noted Parsiana contributing editor Dr Firdaus Gandavia. Complimenting her thoroughness and sincerity, Gandavia stated that her thought-provoking lectures stimulated the minds of several generations of students. "Her scholarship was accompanied by an extremely kind and generous nature. She was entirely devoted to her students and especially to the underprivileged,” he stated. "As a teacher, she always spoke for and argued on behalf of the underdog in whatever text she was teaching and though one did not always agree with her she always presented a uniquely different and perceptive point of view,” he noted. Kapadia "always chose the last lecture of the day so that she could continue after the bell rang… Students joked that once when she had gone well beyond the scheduled time and then apologized profusely saying that she did not have a watch, one of the students wryly remarked that she could always refer to the calendar behind her.” Kapadia would be "missed not only as an inspiring teacher but also as a warm and compassionate human being,” said Gandavia.
"Very dear family friend” and businessman Sorab Engineer also remembered her as a champion of causes of the downtrodden. He told Parsiana that Kapadia was "generous to a fault… (someone) for whom politeness and honesty was a way of life even when in pain… a teacher whose skills in communication, listening, collaboration, adaptability, empathy and patience characterized her.” He narrated that that on the few occasions she would go out for dinner, "people of different ages would introduce themselves as her students of literature whom she would shyly acknowledge… So loved was she as a teacher and friend that her students, despite her having passed into retirement, still called upon her to stay in touch and relive her elegant hospitality.
"She lived her life on her own terms fiercely independent, and only once when teaching poetry in which death was the theme, mused what would happen to all her books on her passing away,” narrated Engineer.
Kapadia is survived by her sisters Roxna Subramaniam Swamy, Coomi Kapoor and brother Meher. F. J.