Prof. Sachin Pimple

“A great teacher is one,

Who holds the hand,

Touches the heart,

And opens the mind..!!”

In the Indian culture, we believe that a guru (teacher) is indispensible in order to attain gyan (knowledge). However, in order to impart gyan to the current generation Y, not just a guru, but a guru-cool is required. One who can strike the balance of wisdom and wit, one who touches a cord in the student’s life and at the same time is not too preachy in approach. I found my guru-cool in Prof. Sachin. C. Pimple, one of the core faculties of the BMS Dept. in Mulund College of Commerce.

On the very first day, on the very first lecture, in the very First Year of my BMS course, when me and my newly made friends were waiting for an old, half bald, over-sized, strict disciplinarian professor to enter the classroom and bombard us with management principles for the next hundred minutes (oh god, who made these 100 MINUTE long lectures?), we all were seemingly taken aback to see a dark, young, vibrant, extremely cheerful and jovial personality enter our class. And at the end of the lecture (who made these lectures only for 100 minutes?), we all were so astonished by this so-called ‘Professor’. No he wasn’t a professor we all ranted to each other; he seemed like a long lost friend, who made so comfortable and home-like on the opening day of our degree life. He is the one about whom I am writing here, our very own Sachin Sir.

Qualifications:

For a very long time, we students were unaware of Sachin Sir’s educational qualifications. Even on the orientation day, Sir mentioned nothing about his academic qualifications except the fact that he himself was an ex-MCCian. I came across the college magazine-VISION, and I happened to flip flop through the pages and was stupefied to see the qualifications he held. Sir has done his M.Com in Accounts, MBA in Finance, Advance Diploma in Business Management, Diploma in Business Management, National Entrance Test in Commerce (NET), Certificate Programe in Software, B.Com (vocational) in Computer Applications and he is pursuing M.Phil as well.

With the collaboration of past and present students, Sir also pilots an NGO, Sakha Nisarga, for the protection of environment. He is currently also working on a business plan revolving around female sanitation and hygiene

Teaching experience and subjects:

What’s more? Sir been a visiting faculty in colleges such as Acharya Marathe College (Chembur), Kelkar College (Mulund), Future Inno-versity,etc. He currently is the BMS Coordiator at Bunts Sangha College and simultaneously also handles work as a visiting faculty at Jai Hind (Churchgate), Chetna College (Bandra). Sir is also a faculty at ITM, Vashi for executive MBA and MFM. (Phew!)

Also, Sir has taught around 20 subjects from the total of 38 subjects taught at BMS in his teaching career spanning over only 7 years, with his forte being majorly accounts and finance related subjects such as Cost Accounting, Management Accounting, Direct and Indirect Tax along with theory subjects such as Principle of Management, Banking and Insurance, EXIM, to name a few.

Teaching methods and philosophy:

Keeping aside all this technical stuff, let me come down to the basic- his teaching, the reason why I idolize him. Most teachers use the lecture method of teaching, where the teacher tells and the student hears. But Sir had a very engaging form of approach. His sessions were lively and active, participative and interactive. Sir would go to each and every student’s desk personally and enquire if the student faced any difficulty or doubt and tried to answer all queries to the best of his ability and to the student’s sense of satisfaction.

Sir understood the psyche of us students well. He made things easy to remember by linking them with movies, movies that we all seemed to enjoy; but he was the one to point out the management principles from the same. Topics like leadership and motivation were taught with the examples from Chak de India, Lagaan, Swades and Sarfarosh. Doesn’t it sound interesting?

The lectures are 100 minutes of ‘sharing’ and ‘listening’. Though the chalks remained the least used, the utilization of brains was most. He not just taught us the textbook syllabus, but also talked about the present day situations (like the Global Meltdown and its impact on us as Indians).

His sessions were one which students looked forward to. Sir used to successfully conduct informative and interesting GDs, debates, extempore speeches, quizzes, surprise tests, that too spontaneously without much planning or thought, inside the classroom itself, and yet we managed to have participation in huge numbers.

It is because of this unique teaching style of Sir, that students do not attend lectures for attendance, but to learn something new and to enrich themselves. Maybe that’s the reason why, even a 9:00 am to 2:00 pm Sunday extra lecture of Sachin Sir saw maximum attendance!

He is a student’s person, always willing to help, counsel, guide and motivate his pupils. But where to find Sir in the college is the question? He is rarely to be seen in the college staffroom. He would be mostly loitering in the corridors, hanging around with students, or in breaks sitting in some classroom solving students’ doubts, at the same time relishing the dabbas of the students.

It is Sir’s belief that ‘Marks do NOT maketh a man’. He propagates never to attain more marks, but to seek wisdom. We are told to look beyond the obvious, to look out-of-the-box, whether it is our studies, our presentations or anything else in life. To put it in Sir’s words, “99.99% gold is pure, but 100% pure gold is more desirable. In the same manner, we must aim for perfection, not just of our work, but also of our personality”

Extra-curricular activities:

Apart from living up to the course curriculum, Sir also conducts various competitions such as literary competition, photography competition, chart-making competition on various entrepreneurs and management gurus, at the Department level.

At the college level, under the leadership of Sachin Sir for the event, Mr. Aadesh Bandekar, a famous Marathi actor and politician had inaugurated the Marathi Literary Circle (MLC).

Unique style:

Everybody likes to hear self-praise, but he is one person, who would ask students to point out his faults and mistakes as part of his feedback, in order to overcome his shortcomings. It stimulates me too to take criticism positively.

And, the best part is, the way he connects with the first-bencher nerds and the back-bencher’s naughty lot alike!

We are being prepared by him, not just for our careers but also to face the challenges put forth by our personal life. On the occasion of Indian Independence Day, Sir gave us the message of “Ladhte raho, Badhte raho” (Keep fighting, Keep progressing)

This teaching has inspired me to envision my dream, of being a teacher, despite the several hurdles that lie ahead.

“A great teacher is one who gives you something to take home to think about

 Besides homework”

Submitted By-

Yasha Shrishrimal

(Mulund College of Commerce)