About

Hello. My name is Farhan Musavi. I am a physicist, teacher, and writer.

As a child, I went to La Martiniere College, Lucknow. During those days I spent a lot of time reading detective fiction, playing cricket, watching cartoons, and riding my bicycle all over the town. 

After finishing school, I joined a coaching institute to prepare for engineering entrance exams. It was then for the first time that I really understood physics and mathematics. 

Mr. Rajesh Verma who taught us physics is the best teacher I have ever had. This is not a paid promotion. 

I also realized then how schools in India only provide you with certificates and mark-sheets and not necessarily with any knowledge. I whole-heartedly agreed with Rancho when he said:

We are not being provided with knowledge here Sir. We are just being taught how to score marks.

— 3 Idiots

I decided to follow my passion for pure physics and dropped the idea of doing engineering. 

I went on to obtain a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in physics, mathematics, and computer science from Lucknow University and a Master of Science (MSc) in applied physics from Amity University, Lucknow. 

I also have a certification in creative writing from the British Council, New Delhi and my writings have appeared in The Huffington Post, The Hindu, and The Times of India to name a few. 

When I was a student and used to get stuck on a concept, I thought that maybe I am not good enough to grasp it. I used to memorize it and replicate it in the exam without understanding what it really meant. And because I got good marks I often fooled myself into thinking that I have understood it. After all, the easiest person who you can fool is you.

It was only several years later when I fortunately studied from good teachers and came across well written books that I realized my problems existed because I was not being taught properly. 

During the past seven years of teaching, I have found this to be sadly true for most Indian institutes. 

I bring this to your attention because if you are facing difficulties in your studies and are blaming yourself then please stop. It's not because you were born with the wrong set of genes or incorrect wiring in your brain. It's because you are not getting correct guidance.

Trust me. I know.

I started Curium Classes to help solve this problem for you. 

Richard Feynman, my hero, was one of the Nobel laureates of physics of 1965. If I were incharge I would make his three volume book Lectures on Physics mandatory reading for all undergraduates of physics and engineering but I am going off topic.  

He once narrated what his father said to him: 

Looking at a bird he says, “Do you know what that bird is? It’s a brown throated thrush," or something, "But in Portuguese it’s a hunto la pero, in Italian a chutto lapittida, in Chinese it’s a chung-long-tah, in Japanese a katano tekeda,” etcetera. “Now,” he says, “you know in all the languages you want to know what the name of that bird is and when you’ve finished with all that, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird! 

"You only know about humans in different places and what they call the bird. Now let’s look at the bird and what it's doing.”

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

The purpose of Curium Classes is to make you know the subject.

(The picture above was taken at Spring Dale School, where I was a senior physics teacher, by my good friend Gaurav Sony.)