HOW I FAILED TO WRITE A FUNNY ARTICLE

(By someone who thought he was funny till the cursor said “nah”)

By the time you read this, please understand one thing:

This is not the article I had planned to write.

I sat down all serious — fresh notebook, favourite pen, laptop open, chai in reach. Full “today I’ll write something hilarious” swag. The kind of confidence where you adjust your sitting position like a stand-up comic about to drop truth bombs… to exactly one ceiling fan and a dog who only respects chicken. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d also decided this would be my PG Wodehouse moment — light, effortless, silly — forgetting that Wodehouse probably didn’t feel “effortless” when staring at his own blank page.

And then…

Nothing.

Not some deep writer’s block.

Not emotional drama.

Just a plain, stubborn blank document staring at me like,

“Funny kahan hai, bhai? Show me the funny.”

The Grand Plan

Mission:

“Write a humorous article.”

Sub-mission:

“Don’t sound like a 2013 Good Morning WhatsApp forward with butterflies and random Buddha quotes.”

Should be simple, right? I mean, I’ve:

• survived hostel life,

• almost drowned in the Krishna river out of pure stupidity,

• cycled across many places in India,

• spent years in the Army with walking punchlines in uniform,

• and now live in a world where even rejection mails are politely worded.

Life has given enough content. Frankly, too much.

But the moment I told my brain, “Chalo, ab funny ho jaa,” it packed its bags, put in a leave application, got it sanctioned, and left the building. No notice period. No handover notes. Stephen King calls the blank page the scariest thing in the world — at this point, even it felt less threatening than that blinking cursor.

Stage 1: Overconfidence

First 3 minutes:

“Easy hoga. I’m the ‘funny one’ in most groups. Ho jayega, relax.”

I typed a title:

“Ten Hilarious Things About…”

And my brain asked, “About what?”

Dead silence.

Fan whirring.

Dog snoring.

Cursor blinking like a flat ECG line for a patient called “Sense of Humour.”

Backspace.

Tried again:

“Why Life is Funny If You Look Closely”

Read it once.

It sounded less like humour and more like a TEDx talk by someone who also sells mutual funds.

Delete.

Somewhere, imaginary Wodehouse looked at this and said, “My dear fellow, even Bertie Wooster wouldn’t sign his name under that.”

Stage 2: The Research Trap

Then I did the classic mistake:

Opened my older writing “just for inspiration.”

In five minutes:

• “Yeh line kaafi theek hai… main ne likhi thi? Koi aur to nahi?”

• “Yeh toh full senti ho gaya, funny kahan hai?”

• Why am I court-martialling my own paragraphs like a bored CO doing surprise cupboard inspection on a Sunday?”

Then I moved to Phase 2 of self-destruction: reading other humour writers.

One hour later:

• One guy has turned traffic jams into deep philosophy.

• Another is making onions and petrol prices sound like stand-up material.

• Someone else has converted his midlife crisis into a bestseller and probably a web series.

And in the corner of my mental library, there’s Wodehouse juggling aunts, butlers, and pigs like it’s nothing, Stephen King casually turning a hotel, a car, and a dog into horror, and Somerset Maugham quietly watching human weakness and writing it down with surgical calm. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here like:

“I wanted to write something funny, and now I’m just a spectator at the Comedy Olympics.”

Productivity: zero.

Insecurity: full.

Chai: finished.

Stage 3: Brainstorming Like a Desperate TV Writer

Now I dropped the “I’m naturally funny” ego and went into full jugaad mode. I opened a fresh page and wrote:

Possible funny topics:

• Growing older but still Googling “how to boil eggs properly”

• That one family WhatsApp group with only “Good Morning” flowers and zero actual conversation

• That uncle who has a PhD from WhatsApp University with a specialisation in “Forward This To 10 People”

• My complicated, on-and-off, toxic-but-committed relationship with my diet plans

Looks solid on paper, no?

Guess how many of these actually turned into an article.

Zero.

Every time I started one, a voice in my head said:

“Arre, yeh sab already likha gaya hai. You’re basically remixing old jokes like a 90s DJ.”

And honestly, that sentence is dangerous for any writer:

“This has already been done.”

Because instead of thinking, “Fine, I’ll do it in my style,”

your brain goes, “Chalo, Maggi banate hain. Wahi safe hai.”

Stephen King says writers should read a lot and write a lot. He forgot to mention the part where you read a lot, compare yourself to everyone, and then write nothing.

Stage 4: Maybe I’m Not Funny At All?

After some time, with chai gone, my brain half-fried and my dog judging me, a lovely thought arrived:

“What if I’m not actually funny? What if people were just being polite all these years?”

Overthinking mode: ON.

• “That friend laughed with me or at me?”

• “That senior officer smiled at my joke, or remembered something else and I claimed credit?”

• “Maybe my humour is like low-fat namkeen — technically there, but no one is truly happy.”

I was one tab away from opening a new document titled:

“Is Humour Dead or Just Avoiding Me on Purpose?”

A sort of low-budget, non-scary Stephen King title where the only monster is my own self-doubt.

Even the laptop fan started making that tired noise, like,

“Bhai, save the file or close the drama.”

Stage 5: Full Surrender

Finally, I just gave up.

Not on writing.

Not on humour forever.

Just on this stubborn ego-trip idea that today I must create the perfect funny article from scratch like some ISO-certified Joke Manufacturing Unit with daily targets.

The moment I dropped that pressure, a small, shy thought surfaced:

“Why not write about exactly this?

You, sitting here the whole day, failing to write something funny.

That itself is quite funny, no?”

And embarrassingly, yes, it was.

So that’s where this article came from.

Not from a big idea.

Not from inspiration.

Just from admitting:

“Aaj kuch nahi ho raha hai, chalo usi ke baare mein likhte hain.”

If Wodehouse specialised in turning minor social embarrassments into full-blown comic epics, and Maugham specialised in quietly exposing the soft underbelly of human nature, this is my tiny, desi, under-confident version of that.

What This Whole Mess Taught Me

1. Humour doesn’t like being ordered around.

The more you chase it, the more it behaves like a cat: stares at you, blinks slowly, and walks off in the opposite direction. Even Stephen King’s haunted cats are probably easier to manage.

2. You’re never as funny as you think.

But also not as useless as your inner critic, who clearly needs a hobby.

3. The best material is usually the thing you’re trying to hide.

In this case: my own flop show of a writing day — pure, unfiltered bakwaas.

4. Sometimes the topic is not outside. It’s you.

Your confusion, your failed attempts, your overthinking, your 47th check of the fridge as if ideas are stored next to the ketchup.

5. Waiting for the “perfect first line” is how hours vanish.

This whole thing started moving once I stopped auditioning opening lines like Indian Idol and just wrote,“This is not the article I had planned to write.”

So Where Does That Leave Me?

Do I now feel like some big humour writer?

No. Calm down.

Do I think this is the funniest thing on Earth?

Of course not. Earth has stand-up comics, cat reels, and Parliament sessions for that.

But did I:

• sit down,

• accept that I had no solid idea,

• still write honestly about the flop show,

• and end up with something that at least sounds like me?

Yes.

And that, I’ve realised, is most of writing.

Not genius.

Not daily fireworks.

Just showing up, looking your own failed attempts in the eye, and saying,

“Tu bhi theek hai, aa story ban ja.”

So yes, I failed to write the humorous article I wanted.

Instead, I wrote this one about that failure.

And honestly, this still beats sitting there watching the blinking cursor like it’s some experimental art piece titled “Man vs Brain: Match Abhi Baki Hai.””

If Wodehouse could make a pig, a newt, and an absent-minded earl carry an entire novel, Stephen King can make a hotel corridor terrifying, and Somerset Maugham can turn quiet little moral failures into unforgettable stories, I can at least make one confused writer and his blank page mildly entertaining for a few minutes. I’ll take the win!