Moogat

Prof. Moogat was of slight build, with eyes that sparkled behind his dark rimmed glasses and his iconic French beard that was always well trimmed. He had a good voice and would modulate the same, whispering, squeaking, hollering, yelling and even shrieking to the top of his voice at times. It was his endeavor to make the subject of mathematics extremely interesting for the students and that is why he would sing and dance, and liberally pepper his words with highly explosive expletives, thereby drawing his students to his lectures in droves like moths to the flame. It was common knowledge that a number of students from the various other colleges in Pune would sneak into the class room occupying every inch of space, even on window sills, in order to lend a ear to his ranting. I have never seen a teacher teach a subject with so much passion, drama and enthusiasm. Despite his unorthodox and innovative teaching methods, Prof. Moogat carved a niche for himself in the rarefied sphere of teaching, with the hundreds of students moving on through the shoals of time to all corners of the globe.

Ask any of his students to speak about him and you will find that their words will echo sincere feelings of love and gratitude for him, giving an insight into the lifetime bonding that has been forged between a teacher and his pupils. He always referred to himself as a 'mad bawa', in true Parsi humourous style and would never hesitate to have a dig at his own eccentric mannerisms. ''Don't think I am mad, I am MAD'' would be his vociferous expression always. That year, Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India, and he would coolly say ''You know boys, our PM is an MP'', and when none of us could decipher what was the joke in that, he would explain that MP meant Mad Parsi. Let me narrate a story that he told once. There is a big square shaped land and at the centre is a pot of gold. At the four corners are Superman, Batman, Shaana Parsi & Yeda Parsi. Who will get the gold first? Answer - Yeda Parsi, because the other 3 characters are fictitious!

Also, those days, I remember, the comparisons and I dare say direct competition was very much on the cards (like a cold war) between the Moogatians (i.e. boys who had joined Moogat's private tuitions for Maths) and those who hadn’t or rather were unable to. For some unknown reason, Moogat had decided to start with some portion ahead of what was being taught in school, and so there was a mismatch between what Moogat taught and what we were taught at school by Mr. Shankar Narayan. This led to all sorts of problems and I think in the 1st Unit Test (or was it mid term exams -I’m not sure), most of the Moogatians did not score so well, thereby giving a chance for Non – Moogatians to ridicule at them. Both of them had significantly different methods to arrive at the same answers, the Moogat method being obviously more profound and dramatic – just like his personality and Shankarnarayan’s being cool just like he was. Let me tell you how Moogat taught us to solve matrices – R1 minus R2, R2 minus R3, Lalalee…lalalee…lalalee. Even after 25 years one still remembers the formulas- he had that kind of influence and impact on his students.

He would become emotional and sentimental at times and talk about the rat race for the marks in the S.S.C, and H.S.C. examinations. He considered the educational system and parents responsible at times for pressurizing the young ones to perform beyond their capacities, thus leading to failure or even suicides. Peer and parental pressures, in this world of stiff competition can sound the death knell to sensitive and young minds, he would say. Indeed, those days a debacle in the 12th standard would spell doom; for the aspirant dreaming of getting a seat in an engineering or medical college. In my opinion, even to this day there is still a fixation in the psyche of the majority of our students who only opt for the engineering or medical professions, even if it means having to cough up hefty sums of money for college admissions. One cannot fathom this trend why other professions like the Armed Forces, Merchant Navy, Hotel Management, Architecture, Interior Decoration, Journalism, Law, Financial Accounting or even the high flying civil services fail to attract our young men. This would become an exclusive topic for a blog that I will write some other day.

Prof. Moogat later on became the principal of Nowrosjee Wadia College, the same college where he taught Maths but I am sure he was uncomfortable for his first love would always have been teaching Mathematics.