Week 16/2026

(This note is written with help of AI. Raw detailed note given by the Mihir)

First principles thinking to selcte work opportunity.

In February 2025, Nidhi and I packed our lives and moved to Ahmedabad. It felt like the beginning of something real.

I had joined a foundation with an exciting vision — a nature-based, project-based premium learning school for children between 3 and 8 years old. I was part of the curriculum team as a learning facilitator: doing pilot projects directly with children, working alongside curriculum designers and researchers. Nidhi volunteered at the Centre for Environment Education for two months and eventually landed a job at their nature-based preschool. Two people, two meaningful jobs, one city. We felt settled.

Parallel to all this, I was quietly building Khojbeen Mandali (KM) — an organisation I care about deeply. In January 2026, Bansi and I launched a Gujarati children’s magazine project. We built a website with help from the Tech4Good community, set up a mentorship forum, started the NGO registration process, and began curriculum development collaborations with four organisations. I wrote an article based on my work with children — it is on its way to being published in Sandarbh by Eklavya. KM was not just an idea anymore. It had a structure, a rhythm, a small life of its own.

And then the ground shifted.

Over the past several months, the organisation I work for has been quietly pivoting. Their vision to build an innovative school has changed — but nobody is telling the team what it has changed into. Leadership is not communicating. Senior people are walking out one by one. The work being handed down is random, disconnected, without any animating purpose.

I was still receiving a good salary. Home was set. Nidhi had meaningful work. On the surface, everything looked fine. But I was spending my days doing things that didn’t matter, inside a structure that was quietly hollowing out.

And then Nidhi told me something important: her father and her dadaji are unwell in Kanpur. She needs to be able to visit frequently. That changed the shape of the problem entirely.

Defining the need :

Financial floor: ₹70k combined if we live in a small town. ₹1L if we stay in a big city like Ahmedabad or Pune. Not ambition — just the number that keeps life functioning without anxiety.

Nidhi’s flexibility: Real, structural ability to go to Kanpur when family needs her. Not “we’ll figure it out” — actual leave flexibility built into the job.

Meaningful work for me: Experiential learning. Mentoring. Curriculum design. Direct work with children or teenagers. Nature-based or project-based pedagogy. Long-term sustained engagement, not short-term project contracts.

KM’s survival: Khojbeen Mandali needs to stay alive in some form — the magazine, the partnerships, the NGO registration, the network in Gujarat.

These four things were the filter. Every option had to be evaluated against them honestly.

Options :

Option 1 — Stay in Ahmedabad, current org Salary continues. Nidhi reduces or pauses her CEE work to have flexibility for Kanpur. KM can grow. But I would be inside a dying organisation, waiting to be let go rather than choosing to leave. When it collapses, I’d be scrambling for a similar-paying meaningful job in Ahmedabad — which is genuinely hard to find in this field.

Option 2 — Remote job, move to Bhopal Bhopal is an overnight from Kanpur. Nidhi can manage visits more easily. But “remote meaningful work at ₹70k+” is a hope, not a concrete plan. And I’d be cutting myself off from the Gujarat network that KM was built on.

Option 3 — Job in Bhopal Good for Nidhi’s travel needs. But good-paying, meaningful education work in Bhopal is rare. The large organisations there tend to run mechanical, top-down programmes — the opposite of what I want to do.

Option 4 — Shaishav Trust, Dediyapada Both Nidhi and I were offered positions in their newly launched rural fellowship project — similar in spirit to Teach For India. My role: curriculum development and training. Nidhi’s role: project manager and mentor for fellows. Combined income ₹70k, rising to ₹80k after six months. Living costs drop to ₹10–15k in a small town. Nidhi gets genuine leave flexibility. The founding team is stepping back and bringing in younger people as the core team — with real responsibility and real stakes.

The Two Real Tensions

Tension 1 — Security vs. Meaning The current job gives salary but is steadily draining meaning. Every option that restores meaning carries some financial or stability risk. These two things were pulling against each other.

Tension 2 — KM’s growth vs. employment Every “good job” option either restricts KM directly — Shaishav requires all work, including freelance curriculum projects, to sit under the organisation — or restricts it indirectly, like Bhopal cutting me off from the Gujarat network KM depends on.

What First Principles Actually Revealed

I asked Shaishav directly about Khojbeen Mandali — whether curriculum freelance work or independent projects could be carved out separately. They said no. Everything sits under Shaishav. All volunteer and freelance work I do would come under them.

That was a real cost to sit with. Not a small one.

But then I asked myself a more fundamental question: what does KM actually need in the next two years to survive?

Not to grow. Not to thrive. Just to survive as a seed until I can return to it.

The honest answer was not my full freelance availability right now. The magazine can continue with Bansi. The NGO registration can proceed slowly. The network doesn’t disappear. The four curriculum partnerships don’t evaporate. What KM cannot survive is a financially anxious, burned-out Mihir spending his days inside a meaningless job, gradually losing energy for everything he cares about.

A grounded Mihir doing deeply aligned field work for two years is better for KM’s long-term survival than a stressed Mihir trying to grow KM while watching his primary organisation quietly collapse.

The financial picture for Shaishav is also more honest than it first appears. ₹70k combined with ₹10–15k living costs means we are effectively living well — better in real purchasing terms than ₹1L in Ahmedabad where rent, transport, and city costs consume most of the income.

The Decision

We are joining Shaishav Trust. We are moving to Dediyapada.

This is not the path of least resistance. It means pausing KM consciously — putting the magazine, the freelance curriculum work, the independent identity on hold — while I invest fully in Shaishav’s core team at a critical moment in their organisational life.

What it gives in return: work that is genuinely aligned with what I believe about education — rural communities, experiential learning, mentoring young fellows, curriculum that is built from the ground up. Entry into a founding team with real responsibility. And for Nidhi: meaningful project work, mentoring, and the structural freedom to be with her family in Kanpur when she needs to be.

Shaishav’s founding team is stepping back and trusting a younger group to carry the organisation forward. That trust is not given lightly. It comes with pressure — the organisation’s survival will depend in part on how well we work. But I would rather carry that weight than sit in an office waiting to be told the vision is over.

A Note on Khojbeen Mandali

KM is not dead. I am choosing to pause it — not abandon it. There is a difference.

The Gujarati children’s magazine project, the curriculum partnerships, the NGO registration, the website, the mentorship forum — all of it remains. Bansi remains. The network remains. The article in Sandarbh remains.

There are moments in an organisation’s life when the best thing a founder can do is step back, do deep work elsewhere, and return with more — more experience, more grounding, more clarity about what the work truly demands. I expect to come back to KM with sharper hands.

While giving full energy to shaishav, I will also give energy to contuning building my personal brand, sharing my work, writing blogs, articles, volunteering not as KM but as Mihir Pathak - educator working with shaisav. Shaishav will be part of my idendity but not the whole thing. I will continue engaging with feedback forum / mentors to do projects inside shaishav.