If there are bubbles of frustration simmering beneath your skin, if your head feels like a volcano waiting to erupt, if your angst seeps out in backhanded taunts directed towards your superiors, and if your Gen Z brain cannot get behind the strict, ever-constant corporate culture that eats away at your soul... then it is time to break something.
Before you take this article as a sign to aim a pot at your colleague's face, try calling in sick to work on a random Wednesday and pouring out your anger in a rage room.
Located at a seemingly sombre and silent Mumbai society in Sakinaka, Andheri East, 'Rage Room' offers you a space to not only 'hulk out', but also pulls you back into the 'now'.
In a sea of e-mails, ideas, meetings and a never-ending list of tasks on our to-do lists; we often forget to stay in the present. The idea of self seems distant, diminished and life begins to feel like a sticky rut of monotony where you wake up, go to work, come back and sleep.
Sometimes, dressing like a budget version of a hazmat technician and swinging a large hammer through a beer bottle is exactly what you need.
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While studies indicate that anger management techniques such as scream therapies and rage rooms may not be a long-term fix for dealing with your emotions, they might help in immediate release and stress relief. Even so, some people choose to subscribe to the monthly or even yearly packages for these places.
"A woman comes here every other week, alone, takes only eight to nine bottles but stays inside for half an hour. She goes back and forth between breaking the bottles and breaking down on the floor," said care-taker Santram Jaiswal, who has been working at the Mumbai branch of Rage Room since its inception in 2024.
However, rage rooms are not a Mumbai-only phenomenon, they are cropping up in other metros and tier 2 cities as well. Some examples include the 'Rage Room & Splash' in Hydarabad, the 'Rage Room' chapters in Bengaluru and Surat, and 'Cafe Bhadas' in Indore.
Engaging our rage in such a tangible manner goes against the fundamentals of everything that we have been taught; entering a space meant for destruction, instead of construction or growth. Thus, it is only understandable that the first throw across the room may be met with some sirens of reluctance from your own amygdala.
But once you convince yourself to follow through, the remaining 29 throws, swings, and smashes feel almost like second nature. The crackle of glass breaking, a sound that is usually perturbing in daily life situations, might suddenly becomes music to your ears. Of course, on the off-chance that it does not, there is always the option of blasting rock music (or whatever genre you prefer) loudly on the speaker inside the room.
From a particularly stressful week at work, to the suffocating pressure of an 'always-on' digital existence; from a nasty break up with your toxic gaslighting ex, to an overarching, all-consuming feeling of grief caused by the state of the world — break bottles, cutlery, laptops in the name of everything and everyone who has made you writhe in fury. Somewhere in the middle of all that destruction, you will reach a point of pure catharsis.
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