Saeeeeed Mujawar Sir : The Cool Dude at Crescent

Ever since I have left school, I have never seen (and probably you would also) a teacher of a knotty subject like mathematics, in a lecture, spending more than half of his time,  with both thumbs attached firmly to the belt loops in his jeans.

He was the cool dude of the school, for him it was probably a stroll in his college, and every now and then popping into a class, and just standing there smiling, silently, like a yogi who has attained nirvana, nothing bothered him, not the loud noise of the class, nothing ..it was nirvana
Originally he was a Geography teacher, and probably that is his mojo too, but somehow in some high spirit of inspiration, someone came up with the idea that he should be a Maths teacher. I guess it was one of those days,,, there was blank in front of Maths Teachers Name,, so someone just did a lucky draw, and wallah.. Saeed Mujawar would be the Maths teacher.
Now he was good, probably great at Geography..
an anecdote here.. when you enter the main empty square of Crescent, right above the principal’s cabin there is a brown wooden board.. It has a martyr list of students who scored the highest in tenth standard board exams. For years and years, the board which was meant to inspire, was the biggest source of depression.. it had many names in white, and a single name in yellow.. Yellow the school color was for the ONE who has secured a ranking in the board exams.

How can 14 white names and a single yellow name INSPIRE !!
anyways, the cool dude single handed changed the narrative, his greatest weapon

with which he empowered his students, was the stencil of India’s map, and his foot soldiers went out with this shastra,
to become legends, as year after year, students got 40 out 40 in Geography…. he showed them, you can excel in your own field rather than being depressed about things…
I never quite understood the stencil part, it was available near almost every school in Pune, but what made it special in the hands of crescentian is not quite known.. all I know is that,

if there was a question in geography for which you had no clue whatsoever as to what the answer was.. you could fill the page drawing the map of India, and if the question is of rivers, draw bunch of lines starting from north and moving west, another bunch of lines starting in center and moving west, and two, yes TWO lines which moved from east to west.

the point was the crescentian could feel confident, that if not anything, they would do good at Geography, (which rhymes with Mohmd Rafi).
and besides the jeans, he brought some style to this teaching too. He gave out these memory pins which could not forget (like TWO east to west), or if you forget anything, major minerals are in Bihar, Chotta Nagpur is to the east of Bada Nagpur. The best thing was that a chapter could be wrapped in a single lecture. There was a flow, a logic, and main thing when other teachers were dictating long answers, he used to give out just points.
like just mention, wind moves from high pressure to low, In winter high pressure in North, Low in south, wind flows, brings rains, called returning monsoon.
and he was a jolly teacher, he taught with a smile, and a very wide smile, cracked jokes, and kept the classroom buoyant, extremely lenient…. I actually do not remember him giving any homework.. maybe in ninth.. no.. definitely not.
He had a brief escapade to Dubai, and thankfully he returned, and probably as return load maths was added to his geographical skills. Maths wise, he was probably against solving too many problems, he approached maths from his geographical logic.. know the concept, and then just remember the concept repeats itself over and over again, so there is a temperate zone, arid, polar etc, and by logic if it is in the north, it has to be in the south,
His Maths was on similar lines, there are linear, simultaneous, and quadratic equations.. this is a formula for quadratic equations, it solves one problem, it solves another problem, so it must be solving all similar problems… oh yes the concept repeats itself in numeric format or in a word problem format.. but if can get solved in numeric it has to be solved in a word problem.
For me, it was quite refreshing, for years and years it was hammered onto me, that maths is repetition, practice, and hard work.

Under his style I learnt, if it is repetitive, what’s the point in practicing it again and again, and then if you are not doing it again and again, it is not hard work, and if it is not hard work, then it is probably not that hard. So folks out there, Maths is simple !!