Mihir Pathak | મિહિર પાઠક

Week 36/2025

· Mihir Pathak

1st Sep to 7th Sep 2025 (Monday to Sunday)

I wanted to write a longer note. I actually did rough work in my notebook, but right now, Sunday after dinner, I am feeling a little lazy to type. But it’s okay, let’s start writing…

Monday to Friday

Mostly office work.

Thursday was the pre-Teacher’s Day celebration at our office campus’s schools. Ratilal Borisagar was invited to give a lecture to all teachers from the 3 schools in the campus. The subject was ‘Teacher’s Karma and Dharma’.

Nidhi was in Hoshangabad during this whole week, attending a workshop at Eklavya Foundation. It was difficult for me to manage the morning routine, making breakfast, doing yoga, and other small things on time. But I have somehow managed.

I have made a tracker to track the following things:

It was difficult for me to follow my diet in the evening. Because I was alone, I got tempted to eat outside. I ate outside for three days out of 6, which is very bad. I need to be more attentive whenever this urge comes. Screen time was also very bad… somehow I managed the morning routine, medicine, and showing up at yoga even for 10 minutes every day.

This tracker is also helping me learn about my body and which food is reacting how.

Tomorrow is Monday and I will continue this tracker. Let’s do it with more attention.

On Friday, our office staff went out for lunch. It was fun. For the last few months, I have been exploring one question:

Just as a musician has their riyaz (daily practice), and a writer has theirs, what would you say is the riyaz of a teacher? What should a teacher engage in every day—not tied to any particular subject or grade, but as a practice of life itself?

On Teacher’s Day, I asked this question to teachers/educators in my contact and compiled their answers here. This exercise made my day wonderful.

Pen Puran

This week I visited Makoba pen store with my dear friend Malay on Thursday. We explored roller and fountain pens. I wanted to buy one different color ink and probably one new fountain pen if it came under my budget. Malay bought a few roller pens. Nothing was in my budget and preference except one 200rs pen from some Turkish brand, which was smooth, but I was not sure about the durability. I was looking for Pilot Kakuno (書く), but it was not available at the store. I somehow managed not to buy anything on impulse. But not for long—on the very next day, I went to another store called Vasani Pen Gallery and bought Kakuno :)

I also bought Pelikan Violet 4001, Pilot black ink pots, and one fountain pen-friendly notebook. I spent around 2k. Yes, I know it is too much. I felt guilty and what not… but it’s okay. I generally don’t spend much money on myself. Once in a while, it is okay. It is a Teacher’s Day gift to me.

I was thinking that there are many fountain pens under 1k budget, but I heard a lot about Kakuno in fountain pen circles through Reddit, and my dear friend Chaitanya also recommended it, so I thought let’s try it. Honestly, I still like my fine nib Beena Antique pen (which is 200rs), but Pilot is smooth and I loved the grip and design of the pen. I feel very nice whenever I hold the pen in my hand. It is a medium nib, so writing is coming lighter than my fine nib Beena. I am acclimatizing myself to using a medium nib. I also bought one syringe to refill the ink. It is very useful and simple.

I filled violet ink in my Beena pen; it is coming really nice. Now I have ready-to-use violet and black pens. Nidhi has one Pierre Cardin and Hero fountain pen, but she is not using them. Probably I will refill green Sulekha ink in one of them and use it.

During reading the reviews, I found a lot of praise about Preppy FP by Platinum. But people also talked about its bad durability. Also, one design error in Kakuno is that its ink dries very fast if you don’t use it for a while (one week or so). But I am happy—I got another Pilot product. I am already in love with Pilot V5/V7 pens. They are awesome.

It is a rabbit hole, an expensive one… instead of buying new stuff, I will explore these first.

Saturday I met Mahendra sir. He called me to seek help. He had by mistake deleted data from his Android mobile, and he wanted to retrieve that. I tried, but I didn’t find the recycle bin in the file manager. The mobile was not synced at all with any cloud service like Google Photos or others. So now there is no way I can do something. I asked ChatGPT; it was suggesting using some paid software to retrieve the data (which only runs on Mac or Windows—I didn’t have any of them at that time). There are shops that retrieve data; I need to make inquiries.

Apart from that, we had a long conversation about Indian philosophy and education.

Overall, everything is good. Nidhi came back this morning. She is looking for a full-time job in the education sector in Ahmedabad.

Reading

I read one essay called ‘Vasant Manni Avastha by Harindra Dave’ from the book called ‘Gujarati Lalit Nibandho’.

It is raining heavily in Ahmedabad, nice weather… but it’s a red alert in Gujarat by weather forecast. It must be a difficult time for some areas.

I am excited for the coming week, especially for yoga sessions, writing with my favorite pens, and working with children.

I am really getting clarity about Indian philosophy and education. I am grateful to Mahendra sir, Srivi, and many other people who guide me in this. I remember my early days of going to different places from Ramakrishna Mission to Osho workshops, Art of Living, and what not… reading Geeta Pravachan by Vinobaji to Krishnamurti… these all led to current understanding… more than understanding… practice… still, it is baby steps… long way to go.

Thank you, universe, for giving me the opportunity to work on this.

#weekly-notes #personal

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