At first glance, Naval Pandole's Nariman Point office gives little away of his enduring connection with Duke's, the iconic beverage established by his great-grandfather Dinshawji Cooverji Pandole in 1889. But if you look closely, the signs are all there. A black and white picture of the erstwhile Grant Road factory hangs on a corner of a wall, while the last copy of a publication released to celebrate the brand's centenary, peeks from the table.

"The celebrations were held in 1989 at the quaint Colaba Agiary, where we invited all our well wishers. Like most Parsi celebrations, the Duke's sodas in pop colours were free-flowing. Frankly, the fact that it lasted for almost four generations was no mean feat," he says. In 1994, PepsiCo bought out Duke and Sons Pvt. Ltd, from its founder. It's an episode that the Pandoles' came to terms with graciously, but somewhere it's still a sore spot. "Since it was a homegrown brand we didn't want to sell it off. But the entry of powerful MNCs on the scene, and the fact that at the time, not too many youngsters from the family were willing to come forward to run it, led to the collective decision," he says. Today, the old monochrome picture and the magazine might be one of the few remnants of the brand, that last week witnessed the demolition of its two-storey cement bottle in Chembur; a 29-year-old relic that will now make way for a residential project by the Wadhwa Group.