The New Currency of “Busy”

Ask someone if they’re coming for dinner next Friday and you’ll rarely hear a simple “yes” or “no.” What you’ll get instead is a polite reply: “Let’s see… I’ll try.” Or maybe, a friend asks your confirmation to a travel couple of months later and in all probability you’d say,  “November is still far off, I’m not sure how I’ll be placed.” (At least that is what I did). Nowadays, we have become culturally allergic to certainty.

The RSVP has been replaced by the NSVP: Not Sure, Will Verify and Possibly Decline.

This hesitation is less about logistics and more about posture. To say “yes” is to admit you’re available. To say “no” is to close the door too early. The safest and most diplomatic answer is maybe. It signals both importance and possibility.

Being busy has become the new way of being important. “Crazy day” is no longer a complaint—it’s a humblebrag. ‘Rain check’ is a phrase that has got into the daily lexicon in India. Busyness is not just a state; it’s a status.

In mythology, gods were always busy. Vishnu was perpetually managing cosmic balance, Shiva locked either in meditation or his cosmic dance, Indra handling celestial warfare. In fact, our Puranas says that if the Gods even just blinks, the world will go into darkness for thousands of years. 

Mortals, meanwhile, waited. To be kept waiting was proof that you were in the presence of power. Earlier, it was the big bosses, film stars, and politicians that kept the world waiting. But now it has percolated down to us mere mortals too. Perhaps that explains why we too now cultivate busyness as a form of soft divinity—it keeps us beyond easy reach.

Popular culture reflects this shift. Think of Rajesh Khanna in Anand, sitting on a swing, singing, and waiting for life to arrive—time itself was a character. Or, think of Sanjeev Kumar crooning, Dil Dhoondta hair pair wahi….Contrast that with Hrithik Roshan in ZNMD, perpetually on his phone, running late, torn between deadlines and desires. Even in rom-coms, calendars have become villains. In Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, the love story is less about two people and more about finding a gap between his treks and her career. Hollywood too has followed suit—Hugh Grant in Notting Hill could idle in a bookshop for love; Ryan Gosling in La La Land must schedule love between auditions and jazz gigs. Google Calendar is the new third wheel.

Contrast this with the past. A village wedding invitation was not a tentative “let’s see” but a firm commitment. Calendars were emptier, but priorities clearer. Showing up was an obligation, not an optional extra.

What has changed is not our schedules but our relationship with them. We no longer wear jewellery to show we matter; we wear our cluttered calendars. The humble “crazy day” has become a badge of honour. The more double-booked, the more indispensable.

The irony, of course, is that busyness produces very little. It is the performance of productivity, not productivity itself. But in an economy where attention is scarce, performing busyness is a way of ensuring that one’s time—and therefore one’s self—retains value.

We are all Vishnus now, pretending to hold up the world, while secretly hoping no one notices that much of our busyness is self-invented.

Or, maybe, our busyness is a prelude to show that our presence is priceless.