Aditya’s collectibles
Updated on: 23 Sep 2026, 12:45 am
For a generation that spends much of its day switching between screens, meetings, and notifications, leisure is beginning to look surprisingly old-school. Since there is barely anything to call yours at work, adults are owning their hobbies, taking it seriously, but at the same time, steering away from the pressure of being perfect at it. They do it simply because they love it.
The trend, often referred to online as “hobby maxing”, has turned hobbies into a way of making room for something that a busy routine tends to push aside: time for oneself.
Aditya, who calls himself a “bomma collector”, has a full-time job in marketing and, by night is “on a lifelong quest as a pop culture archivist, collecting action figures, statues, and memorabilia.” He believes that if one enjoys their hobbies, that is enough.
Has productivity become the yardstick to measure a person’s worth? Aditya steers away from this lifeless notion of work that kills joy. He says, “In a world obsessed with maximising output and 24/7 productivity, collecting is my ultimate circuit breaker. Society demands that every second produce a yield, but unboxing a statue or setting up a display pays zero financial dividends, and that’s precisely why it works. It isn’t about output, efficiency, or resume-building; it’s pure, intentional play.”
A space between the office and home — or maybe far away from them — that’s where he slows down. He recalls how he and a fellow collector started a community called Madras Toy Collector. It’s a WhatsApp group where “like-minded folks across Chennai share an obsessive passion for pop culture collectibles. Having a space like this feels incredible — it’s our personal Fortress of Solitude.” He calls it a “judgment-free zone where adults can geek out over action figures, statues, and share deals online.” It’s a reassurance that such hobbies are “completely reasonable.”
Aditya would trade anything for his dopamine-inducing products. He describes the joy of finally getting his favourite collectible, as tracking down collectibles isn’t easy here. “When a package finally bypasses all the logistics boss-battles and arrives safely at my doorstep, the dopamine hit is unmatched.”
Praveen Spartan, with his wide-ranging knowledge which he acquired by self-learning, says that for him, hobbies were a culmination of his dreams and interests he had cultivated in himself. He recalls his schooldays when he would forage for DC comic books at Moore Market, and this love for comics has made him a cosplayer. He calls hobbies “freedom” — a space to make mistakes and improve without any pressure.
Chennai has been a seedbed to nourish his love for cosplay. He remembers winning at Comic Con Chennai, in the animation category. “I cosplayed as Batman and made my suit in three weeks,” he says. He has a community that shares similar interests as his, where he shares his ideas for cosplay. His close circle drives his hobbies too.
Praveen has also been collecting watches and learning to repair them. Besides keeping his grandfather’s and father’s watches close, he has collections of Citizen and casual watches. His go-to place is Parrys and Moore Market, where he finds replicas of expensive watches. His love for watches has gone to the extent that he went around asking watchmakers how to mend them! He chuckles, “I almost asked 8-10 watchmakers in Moore Market, but no one taught me.”
Motorcycling and <a href="https://comicvibe.com/a-michael-jordan-baseball-card-leads-heritage-weekend-auction/” title=”A Michael Jordan Baseball Card Leads Heritage Weekend Auction”>heritage walks fill the rest of his leisure time, or rather, he carves out time for them. On passing on hobbies, he says, “I have started journaling. I am also teaching my kid to collect tickets (any tickets) while travelling, and I ask her to stick them to the pages of her journal. It’s a way of looking back at them as memories.” The best part of hobbies? You can either continue doing them, or discard them mid way and take up something new. With this liberated view, Praveen keeps his learning curve going, and now he is learning a musical instrument called Kalimba.
Dr Nisha Devi, who is a doctor and is currently working in cognitive neurology research, along with her profession, practices mural art and dance. These hobbies, she says, “have always been important for preserving our sanity and whimsy. It’s given me the perspective and courage to choose non-linear career choices. It gives me grounding and space to breathe. It reminds me that time is, after all, meant to be wasted.” She adds that she has never had the pressure of goals and timelines while pursuing what she loves.
One of the perks of owning a hobby is also to have a new community. For Nisha, her hobby has turned into a collective joy of sharing her love for art with others. “I’ve worked with so many women over the years painting walls. I’ve run workshops where 40-year-old women were letting loose and getting paint stains on their clothes.” The city has given her the space to paint in government schools and animal dispensaries. “Now I see a booming culture of murals in Chennai, and I’m here for it.”
For Sejal, who has worked in legislative research and is now building her own platform, that has meant taking up a new hobby almost every month. Golf is her current fixation. Before that came pickleball, rifle shooting, pottery, Madhubani and Mandala painting, and rock climbing. Running has also become part of her routine. “I majorly pick one hobby for a month. And then I go from beginner to intermediate, advanced, etc., in taking it up and seeing how it pans out for me,” she says. Her recent preference, however, has been activities that get her outdoors, and hence, sports.
The motivation is less about collecting accomplishments and more about escaping the monotony of professional life. Hobbies provide something to look forward to outside work and help break the cycle of returning home to YouTube or Netflix.
That desire to disconnect is echoed by Sambhavi, a consultant who has recently taken up bouldering while rediscovering writing, art, and journaling. For her, hobbies offer a way to step away from the constant digital stimulation of everyday life and reconnect with activities that allow her to slow down. “I think it drains us in a way we don’t recognise. And there’s also like a lot of dopamine overload,” she says, describing the growing attraction towards “going analogue” as a way of giving the mind a break.
Her relationship with journaling and writing has also evolved. She first experimented with the idea of keeping a diary as a child, later discovering journaling through an online group during the pandemic.
Bouldering, in particular, has offered her something that a desk-bound routine cannot. She describes the experience of climbing as feeling like there is “a monkey inside me” that had been kept in a cage by sitting at a desk from nine to five. The sport also comes with its own challenges. As the difficulty increases, she finds that fear and self-doubt can become bigger obstacles than physical strength. Completing a level, therefore, brings its own rush.
For Sambhavi, that is also where the distinction between a hobby and another form of self-improvement becomes important. “The minute I start doing it, for the sake of self-improvement, it might start feeling like a chore,” she says.
Sambhavi describes her hobbies as a way of exploring what “play” means as an adult. With a full-time job, activities such as art and writing give her a space where she can reconnect with the part of herself that simply wants to create something for the joy of it.
But the irony is hard to miss — of social media helping people discover ways to escape it. Sejal, for instance, finds many of her new hobbies through Instagram itself. Watching people document their experiences motivates her to try activities, after which she filters options based on location and cost. The online world, hence, is not necessarily the enemy of the hobby. It can be the doorway into it.
There is also a social element to the hobby boom. Bouldering may be an individual sport, but Sambhavi says the community around it can be encouraging, with people cheering one another on. Sejal similarly finds that these activities have helped her meet new people. As Sambhavi puts it, hobbies can easily become another thing to be “good” at, another target to hit or another metric to measure. Instead, she wants to treat them as play, something done because it brings joy.
In a culture that increasingly asks what every hour can produce, perhaps the new hobby is simply learning to spend some time without needing an answer.
