Bored of being Bored

(by Aditi Dixit, Class XI)

When my board exam got over, I didn’t feel the excitement that I should’ve felt. I got home, ate the same daal chawal, and returned to my same bedroom. I decided I wanted not sleep that day. So, I cleaned my room and emptied my shelves of all the study books that had painfully replaced my beloved novels, as the examination pressure increased. I put them in a box, but the box got so heavy that I had to put the box on my skateboard and skated them into the storeroom. I imagined selling them in sadar bazaar and buying a bucket of ice cream with the money. I looked around my empty room, with used pens in one corner and half-filled rough notebooks with unsolved math equations, in the other. I won't have to solve these anymore. I took a deep breath and smiled. I dressed up and wore my favourite shoes. I tied my hair in a bun and went for a walk at 4 in the afternoon. I sang along to the songs playing in my earphones, and no one peeked out of their balcony to shut me up. I made a playlist of songs I had heard but never knew the names. I celebrated my liberation. I was free.

I jumped over my bed and stared at the ceiling. I counted the flaps of the fan rotating until I couldn’t count any more. I had no thriller, horror or suspenseful movies to watch so I randomly watched a documentary about Kim Jung-un at fast forward. Then, I practised typing till my fingers ached. I planted money plant in a milk-shake glass bottle and painted a terrible painting of that plant.

I realized that I was now bored of being bored. It felt strange. I wanted to do something, but not productive. So, I started writing a journal and here is an abstract from that entry- I've lived my life in a daze. In order not to fall behind... and not be criticized, I held out with all my might. But looking back now, I realized that I always criticized myself more harshly... than anybody else ever did. From now on, I'll do nothing. I'm going on strike against this thing called life.

It is necessary to be bored sometimes. Everyone is so busy running, catching a bus, take an exam, be the best at their jobs, that they forget the feeling of being bored. Your senses become alive when you are bored and you feel the smallest of things. Your mind is allowed to think about matters not necessarily beneficial to your future. When I became bored of being bored, my thoughts blended like colours in a palette. They turned into different shades of green and blue and eventually turn into white light. So I imagined myself riding this rainbow with specks of gold and silver till I accomplished peace.