MS Nokia

It was the year 2003.

India was bracing itself for a boom, there was an air of optimism, and India had reached the final of the World Cup. Sehwag was still a budding talent, and he was facing an evil black fast bowler with braids.

He flashed hard outside the off stump; and missed. Mohit Chauhan, sitting in the galleries, gets a call on his phone, and says, “Sehwag ki maa….”

Just as you think he is an irate fan, a little kid next to him flicks the phone, breaks the security cordon, runs into the pitch, and throws the phone to Sehwag. Sehwag reads the message, and smashes the ball outside the boundary.

“Come on India. Kar lo duniya mutthi mein….”

 

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When Reliance Indiamobile launched their phones, it was supposed to be a revolution.

You pay Rs. 500, get a phone, and pay the rest of the amount in monthly bills. The Indian consumer waited, mouth watering and fidgety, like a tiger waiting for food at a zoo.

As it turns out, the only revolutions were the ones taken by the bill collectors, around the houses of the people who refused to pay. The company had to write off 16% of their revenues that year as Bad Debts.

But the Indian consumer had tasted blood. And there was no going back to the daal-chaawal of landline phones.

The ‘mobile’ had become a part of the Indian consciousness. ‘Missed Call’ and ‘Ringtone’ had been firmly entrenched into our lingo.

 

 

 

Personally, I got into the game very late. I was doing wonderful, life-altering jobs at the time. Like the call centre job that paid me 1000 rupees after six months. And the Customer Care Executive job at Reliance Mobile, where I had to do some background research into cell phones and different models.

When I finally got my first cell phone, it was 2007. The phone was a Nokia 2600. It was supposed to have a colour screen, but in reality, it was as colourful as Ishant Sharma is a deadly fast bowler. There was however, Bounce on the phone, and once I learnt of the magic number (787898), there was no stopping me. I looked into my phone every few seconds, typing messages, deleting them, and typing them again.

My next phone, the Nokia 2310 had FM radio on it, and I would spend the nights listening to a horny RJ whisper into the mic at night, Love ka keeda…love ka keeda….love ka keeda. Everywhere I went, I carried my headphones with me, listening to everything the FM channels had to say, as Himesh Reshammiya quickly climbed up the ladder of success.

But the times were changing. There was a demand for music on the phones, and pictures and videos. Disillusioned as I was, I strayed.

I chose a Samsung phone, back when all they made was phones with annoying ringtones. The phone was terrible. It crashed every few hours and I couldn’t type a long message without it getting deleted.

One night, it got stolen. But I lived on, confident that the thief would knock on my door and return it saying, “Dude, this phone sucks. You keep it.” He didn’t.

My next phone was a Nokia 5130 Xpress Music. By now, the situation was shaky. My needs as a consumer had increased manifold. I wanted to have lots of songs on my phone, a few videos, some games, and a memory card.

My phone was chugging along grudgingly, but if I wanted to delete lots of messages, it would hang. It was difficult to digest, being a lifelong Nokia fan. That a Nokia phone could hang, I felt like hanging my head in shame.

When this phone breathed its last, I stopped using a cell phone for a year. It was the most blissful year of my life. I read a lot, hung out with new people, and smoked copious amounts of pot.

By the time I bought my next phone, it was a different era altogether. The era of a phone being a minicomputer. And my humble phone, the Nokia X2, struggled to keep up. It was a tortoise in a race course, stopping every few metres to cough and sneeze.

It did play music, and the battery, like all Nokia phones, lasted for the span of an entire K-serial, but that wasn’t enough. It did have GTalk, but calling it GStutter would have been a better option.

For the first time, a Nokia wasn’t good enough. It was struggling to maintain its position, like Amitabh Bachchan in his Lal Badshah days.

And I bought a smartphone.

And once you buy a smartphone, it is a never-ending spiral. There is no peace of mind. Just when you work out the best phone in your budget, there will be this new phone that does everything your phone does, and masturbates you when you’re bored. A never-ending spiral that goes on and on.

 

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As Nokia is sold, it is not difficult to understand why the brand was such a rage in India. Like Bata, the other brand that is surprisingly not Indian, it epitomised the Indian customer’s needs: sturdy, long lasting, cheap. It could run for days in a country when power was not a daily commodity. It provided communication and safety, and in the worst case scenario, you could throw the phone at an assaulter’s head, and be guaranteed of a hemorrhage!

Much has been said of India’s rise in the last twenty years, and if there is one success story that cannot be denied, it is the mobile revolution in India. Our one, true success story.

And while the Congress keeps attributing it to Rajiv Gandhi and Sam Pitroda, the true champion was this Finnish company that made phones that Indians could relate to.

 

And today, when the world is flooded with phones that can do everything under the sun, and some over the moon, I am reminded of the days of yore.

When the first thing you saw on your phone were those two hands connecting to each other. And the next hour would be spent in deciding the ringtone. When a little, blinking snake was my companion in times of boredom.

When Missed Calls became the Morse code of a generation, and in spite of the ‘condom covers’ on phones, they kept spawning endlessly. When the only thing you needed on your phone to look cool was that sticker at the back, which glowed when there was a call coming.

To the time when I would wait for the sticker to glow, to send a flash message. To set my favourite song, reinterpreted in monophonic tones, as my ringtone. The secret indulgence of setting a separate ringtone for my girlfriend, so that I would know when it was her calling.

To the time when the words ‘incoming’ and ‘outgoing’ made a world of difference. Running to a shop, buying a small card, scratching it frantically, squinting into it, dialing a number, and smiling.

To the times of virginity, and first loves.

 

 

It has been a long, eventful journey, my friend.

You have been taken over by a company that is not really known for its aesthetics, but reaches out to the most number of people in the world. Much like you did, at one time.

I don’t really know if I am going to use you again. But when I look at the ‘Low Battery’ message on my phone, I think of you longingly.

You were a good friend.