Please Help Me Get Bored Again

There’s plenty of stuff that I miss from the 90s. Like the fucked-up sensibilities of Bollywood which warped our ideas of love, life, and beyond. Or how we romanticised maa ke haath ka khana, not realising they were probably being forced to spend their entire lives in the kitchen. Or idolising your school seniors and neighbourhood bhaiyyas, only to find them becoming the vilest sanghis by 2014.

Yeah, the 90s were a lot of fun.

But you know what the one thing is that I miss the most from that bygone era? It’s something that made us go nuts. It would make us cry at times. It was so frustrating that we’d want to pull our hair out.

I’m talking about boredom. Real, pure, unadulterated boredom.

I don’t even know if the concept exists today in the form that it used to back then. Like yeah, I mean, boredom is still around. A movie can be boring. Or a book. Or a family function you’ve been forced to attend. Or a Substack piece by a dumb and unfunny dude who thinks he’s cool just because he has a tattoo and a piercing.

But I don’t know if we’re talking about the same thing. Getting bored meant something very different back in the day.

Being bored used to mean having literally nothing to do. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Boredom wasn’t a hangout with friends that wasn’t fun, or a teacher’s lesson that wasn’t engaging enough.

It was simply you, staring at a blank wall, wondering what the fuck you were supposed to do with yourself in that exact moment. That kind of boredom just hit different.

I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, so it wasn’t like I was reading Homer or Shakespeare at age three. I was just another dumb little kid wanting to play and have fun with my friends. Padhai wasn’t my forte either. And I shit you not, there wasn’t much else you could do in the era I’m talking about. Even if you had option, there were only so many ‘productive’ things you could do with your time, na?

So, if you were done with school... if you didn’t feel like picking up a book to read or completing your homework... if you weren’t particularly crafty or full of exciting hobbies... if your TV usage was strictly monitored or if nothing good was airing across the 10 channels you got... man, you really had to figure things out.

You would literally just sit, stand, or pace around the room wondering, “What the fuck do I do now?” And that was it. There was no escape. No immediate dopamine hit. You were doing absolutely nothing, and going crazy while doing it.

While it was tough – and in that moment felt like the worst thing that could ever happen to you – it had its benefits.

That desperation to escape boredom opened up a whole realm of possibilities. And I think that’s what I miss the most.

We’d come up with the weirdest games and ideas just to kill time. Be it trying to force a Media’s Little Master cartridge into an old 286 computer, deciding to fly a thaile wali kite from the chhat at 2 PM in the scorching heat, almost getting abducted by a shady guy after deciding to walk to the beach alone during a family trip to Mumbai, or just inventing completely random games with household garbage.

I think I may have done some of my best creative work when I was thoroughly bored.

I see traces of this in my current life too. I’m on most social media platforms, even if I’m not active everywhere. The funniest, most random shit I’ve ever posted online has always been when I was bored out of my mind. Waiting for someone, or having nothing urgent to do, and suddenly going on a spree of posting stories, jokes, or rants.

In fact, some of the best ideas at work, ideas for short stories, or my Substack ideas – they’ve all come when I’ve gone completely blank with 0 stimulation. It’s come out of boredom.

And I miss doing it more often. I miss actual boredom.

I know the fault lies with me. I’m the one who is dependent on screens now. I’m the one who picks up the phone at the slightest hint of a lull. Still, I wish we didn’t live in a world where complete, absolute boredom has been engineered out of existence.

Today, you have to make a conscious, painful effort to get bored. You have to force it. Phone door rakho. Tech door rakho. Stay away from screens. Don’t pick up a book. Go into nature. Lie down on the floor. Stay with your thoughts. Argh, it’s so much fucking effort. Why has doing nothing become so complicated?

It’s such a simple concept, right? You don’t need to do anything to get bored. In fact, the whole point is doing nothing. But it just doesn’t happen naturally anymore. Pehle easy tha.

• Bathroom mein kya karein? Read the back of shampoo bottles.

• Restaurant mein kya karein? Run around the tables with your sibling.

• Relative ke ghar kya karein? Put together a terrible little skit with your cousin.

• School mein kya karein? Play some stupid version of book cricket.

• Ghar par akele kya karein? Find anything with a wire and start unscrewing it.

• Bahar akele kya karein? Copy the bowling actions of different international cricketers.

Now? Nahi hota. The screen has taken over, and I genuinely want to break away from it. Maybe writing this is just a reminder to myself to keep fighting the urge. To stay away from the screen and get comfortable with being bored again – even if it feels difficult and counter-intuitive.

If any of you have managed to successfully cure your screen addiction and reclaim the art of doing nothing, let an old man know.

Cheers.