What did you do this weekend?

Every Monday morning, in the liminal space between work and routine, a familiar question drifts through India’s cities. It’s heard in the offices of Bengaluru, on the terraces of Bandra, in the awkward silence before Zoom calls begin:

“So… what did you do this weekend?” It sounds innocent enough — small talk, a social placeholder. But like all good rituals, it’s loaded. For many young urban Indians, it’s less about plans than projection, and more about who you were while doing it.

This is the hidden psychology of modern leisure. In the language of Erving Goffman, the 20th-century Canadian-American sociologist who likened life to a stage, we’ve moved our weekend from the backstage of anonymity to the frontstage of performance. The weekend used to be a breath. Now it’s a brand.

I first noticed it in Mumbai, walking past a sunlit studio in Bandra where a dozen 20- and 30-somethings were shaping clay into mugs. They worked in silence, brows furrowed in concentration. Later, I’d hear from a participant who said, “It just feels good to use my hands for something.” She didn’t say she liked pottery. She said she liked using her hands. That’s the language of intentionality, of meaning-seeking — a telling linguistic tic of a generation that wants its free time to say something about its inner life.

And this isn’t unique. From sourdough starters to film cameras, salsa classes to stargazing meetups, young Indians are filling their weekends with activities that are, consciously or not, acts of self-curation. Psychologists might call this narrative identity: the stories we tell ourselves (and others) about who we are and why we matter.

We measure rest. We track joy. We optimise the weekend. In resisting the 9-to-5, we’ve built a 5-to-9 that looks eerily similar. The harder we try to escape productivity’s grip, the more we reinvent it.

Access and instant gratification

To understand how we got here, it helps to look at the numbers. India is now home to over 600 million people under the age of 35, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence study. In cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad, a new class of young professionals — many unmarried, many living away from their families — have both the income and the autonomy to shape their downtime.

This demographic shift is seismic. A generation ago, weekends in India were not individual experiences; they were communal and obligation-heavy. Visiting relatives. Catching a movie with cousins. Running errands for the household. The idea that you would “do something for yourself” on a weekend was, if not selfish, then certainly rare.

But today’s urban Indian is surrounded by different signals. Time has become a currency, and weekends are seen as investments: of energy, of identity, of social capital. The stakes are high because the time is short. And into this temporal vacuum has stepped an entire industry.

To really understand the psychology of today’s curated weekend, you have to travel back — not to the last decade, but to the 1950s and 60s, when India’s middle-class was forged in the quiet discipline of scarcity. As Surinder S. Jodhka, a sociology professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, points out, “Consumer goods then weren’t just hard to afford, they were often impossible to find.” Desire wasn’t about acquisition. It was about patience. The good life was deferred, not displayed.

Surinder S. Jodhk

Urban India, even then, set the tone — what was aspirational in Delhi eventually became meaningful everywhere else. But the post-liberalisation shift cracked that model open. The Nehruvian ethic of restraint gave way to a new moral order: one that celebrated access, aspiration, and immediate gratification. Today’s weekend, in many ways, is a symptom of that transformation. The people shaping their Saturdays around calligraphy classes and handmade pasta aren’t just spending — they’re rewriting the script of middle-class aspiration.

The good life is no longer about waiting. It’s about choosing.

The value of variety

This growing demand for meaningful, shareable moments has sparked a surge in curated experiences. The idea once captured by the iconic Tata Safari ad — ‘Reclaim your life’ — no longer calls for a road trip or an SUV. It’s happening in two-hour workshops and weekend retreats, micro-escapes designed to restore a sense of control, creativity, and self. According to Prof. Anirban Chakraborty of IIM Lucknow, “This is part of a broader shift among young professionals: the urge to close the gap between the real self and the ideal self through curated, meaningful experiences.”

He calls it an “experience-seeking economy” — where value isn’t just about relaxation, but variety, novelty, and narrative. The more diverse the activity, the richer the self-story. And in this context, even leisure becomes a kind of emotional labour. Borrowing from American sociologist Arlie Hochschild, we could say we’re toggling between shallow acting (performing interest) and deep acting (genuinely feeling it). Pottery isn’t just about clay — it’s about who you are while shaping it.

As Akash Biswas, a 29-year-old consultant in Gurugram, explains, there’s a constant pressure to appear interesting — to have hobbies that spark conversation or shine on social media. “Sometimes, in pretending to be curious, you actually become curious,” he says. He once tried a sushi-making class, signed up for improv comedy, and even joined a weekend hiking group. “Improv really stuck with me,” he admits. “It felt freeing to just respond in the moment, without overthinking — kind of like a break from the polished version of myself I usually present [to everyone].” And he’s still exploring. “I want to be the guy who picks up odd, cool hobbies — and who knows, maybe I’ll actually like one of them.”

Akash Biswas on a weekend hike with friends

Economic impact of curated leisure

You can trace much of how Indians spend their weekends today back to the pandemic — a moment that forced millions indoors, nudging them towards slower, more tactile experiences. Suddenly, the kitchen wasn’t just where you ate; it was where you created. Across cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Pune, boutique studios began to crop up, offering everything from ceramics classes in Koramangala to calligraphy workshops tucked into Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda Festival.

Last month saw a series of pop-ups inviting people to try their hand at cyanotype photography or even brew their own kombucha — a strange, artisanal rebellion against the instant and disposable. Meanwhile, micro-retreats promising “peace in 48 hours”, complete with sound baths and journaling, have taken hold in places like Goa and Auroville.

Behind this burst of activity lies a bigger truth: where identity lives, economy follows. India’s “experience economy” in Tier 1 cities is growing 30% year-on-year, fuelled by millennials and Gen Z, according to a joint study by Boston Consulting Group and the Retailers Association of India. This isn’t just consumption; it’s participation in a narrative economy — where your weekend is a chapter in the story of who you want to be.

Your weekend is a chapter in the story of who you want to be
| Photo Credit:
iStock/Getty Images

But it’s more than just business, it’s psychology. The modern urban professional never truly clocks out. Work seeps into phones, chats, even dreams. So free time becomes sacred. And it can’t just be empty — it must be meaningful. A hike is wellness. A photo walk isn’t just about light; it’s about taste and style. Even “doing nothing” comes with hashtags such as #DigitalDetox or #SlowLiving. Leisure has become a soft performance review — not of skills, but of sensibility.

It isn’t all performance

Still, for some, the appeal isn’t performance at all. It’s access. “Growing up, most of these things were either unavailable or unaffordable,” says Priya Yadav, a 31-year-old graphic designer in Bengaluru. “Now I can try a pottery class on a whim. It feels like having a cultural buffet right in my neighbourhood.”

That sense of possibility is echoed by Arjun Mehra, a finance professional in Mumbai. “Growing up, eating out was reserved for special occasions — a treat, not a routine. Now, with food clubs and casual meetups, it’s become a part of everyday life. I get to explore new cuisines and spots every weekend.” And it’s not just about eating out; it’s about being experimental, about tasting the world — from Korean BBQ pop-ups to Ethiopian injera dinners — and reconnecting with regional traditions.

There is something undeniably hopeful here. After years of screen saturation, the return to analogue — the handmade, the slow — is more than a trend. It’s cultural therapy. The people shaping clay or writing poems aren’t posing; they’re recovering something lost. “The return to analogue is an intentional choice for many. There is something quiet about it. You have to zone in; you cannot be lost in your devices,” shares Varun Gupta, co-founder of the Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB), whose workshops, from cyanotype photography, film development and printing to Van Dyke Brown printing, are always sold out.

A Chennai Photo Biennale workshop
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy CPB

He doesn’t feel that the people CPB attracts are there to merely check boxes or share posts on social media. “It’s about tactility. People want to work with their hands; they are tired of typing and scrolling. Just being able to paint chemicals on paper is such a unique feeling that it kicks off a separate set of endorphins in your brain. It helps you rescript your day to day, and heal your soul,” adds Gupta.

Building a new yet similar 5-to-9

And yet the paradox remains. The harder we try to escape productivity’s grip, the more we reinvent it. We measure rest. We track joy. We optimise the weekend. In resisting the 9-to-5, we’ve built a 5-to-9 that looks eerily similar.

Sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls this search for “resonance”, our deep craving to feel connected and alive. When leisure hits the mark, it does just that. But when every moment must resonate, it stops feeling real. It becomes performance.

When every moment must resonate
| Photo Credit:
iStock/Getty Images

So, where does it go from here? If curated leisure is a response to burnout and alienation, its next phase may not be about more options, but a quieter kind of honesty. In the West, signs of this shift are already visible. ‘Nothing clubs’ in London gather people simply to be, while movements such as ‘bare minimum Mondays’ in the U.S. push back against hyper-efficiency. India isn’t far behind. The same generation that gamified rest is now bumping up against the fatigue of constant optimisation. The next iteration of leisure may hinge less on what we do and more on how we feel doing it. Less proof, more presence. Because maybe the ultimate luxury isn’t a kombucha workshop or a calligraphy kit. It’s being boring — and being okay with it.

So the next time someone asks, “What did you do this weekend?”, perhaps the most honest — and subversive — answer is: “Nothing much.” And let that be enough.

The author works in consulting by day and writes about culture, business, and modern life.