Why Your BlackBerry Is Actually Bappi Lahiri In Disguise

“You know what, Sarthak? I have to get a message pack for my phone only because of you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“Shut up! Why don’t you just go get yourself a BlackBerry. It’s so cool, man. Then we’ll be able to BBM the whole day. It’s so much fun.”

I’ve been pulled into such conversations by atleast 63 people since everyone from my dad to the guy who delivers milk at my place in the morning got himself a BlackBerry. I don’t see the whole obsession with it. It looks like the kind of shit Bappi Lahiri should own, and I’m really happy not being associated with it. I really mean the Bappi Lahiri part.

I remember rushing home from school in my 2^nd grade. “Jaao kapde change karo and khaana khaane aao”, my dadi ordered. I ran into my room, changed into my black kurta, stretched my school belt to its maximum length and buckled a little cushion on my belly. “Yeh kya kara hai?”, my dadi inquired with a look that showed a fear of believing that a little boy could know of pregnancy at such an early age. “All boys’ schools do this to little kids. He should’ve been put into a co-ed”, she must’ve told my parents that night. Having believed that I knew of “it”, no one wanted to embarrass himself with the inquiry. Well, the topic might also not have been raised because my family thought that I was just trying to act like a fat man, but I choose to believe in the former.

I was something cooler than a pregnant lady. I was Bappi Lahiri. Being Bappi was easy. I just needed two kurtas. A black one, and another in white. I couldn’t give up on the cushion and the school belt since my mum had lost all hope in making me a healthy boy, after spending like a zillion bucks on a weird cherry flavored syrup called “Mom, I’m hungry”. My tauji had got me a really cool pair of multi-colored Mickey Mouse –goggles- from Disneyland, which proved handy in times when I wished to enjoy Bappihood. A few safety pins joined together worked perfectly well for the gold chain, as I had proudly learnt of white gold by then.

“Bappi Lehri” I would call myself and feel awesome all day. Little did I know that the guy who sang in a roshogulla-baritone looked more like the phone which most of my friends would love to carry fifteen years from then.

“Hey, which BB did you get yourself?”, a friend of mine asked another in college. “Bold”, the latter pronounced with his chest so pumped up that I feared he’d turn into Vidya Balan from The Dirty Picture. “Dude, the Curve’s good too”, said a third chap, and I realized that it wasn’t just his chest that reminded me of the voluptuous actress. The friggin’ phone did too! It’s huge, man. The BB curves like Bappi’s quadruple-chin and is bold like the gold which attracts more eyeballs to that lump of fat which houses in itself a pitcher full of sondesh.

“You got your BBM activated?”, barged in a girl who jumped like she was going to hook up with the new BB owner on the Instant Messenger. “No, man. I’ll get it done today. I don’t have enough balance to do it right now.” “How much do you need?”, I asked, ready to show them how I could transfer some talktime on Vodafone. “Dude, it’s 599 for the whole pack.” “Whaa?! Is that a pack of gold plated STD protection latex you’re ordering for on your phone?”, I replied. (Well, obviously not in the same words. This blog is for family audiences, you see.) That’s the kind of luxury, I believe, only Bappi can afford. I got an internet recharge on my phone for 95 that day, and my email as well as facebook account was at easy access. I spent about half a grand on food that evening, not feeling even the slightest bit of pain that pocket money below the reorder level could give me on other days.

Birthday celebrations are not something that the elders at my place believe in a lot. “Dadi, aaj toh aapka birthday hai! Yay! Aaj party karoge”, I would tell my dadi with joy on the 17^th of February every year. “Arrey, birthday toh bachon ka manaate hain. Mujhe koi birthday nai manana” used to be the usual reply year after year. I stopped asking after I turned 15, I think, but I should give my luck a shot in 2012. My parents are no different. Their birthdays mean just ordering for food. No cake. Uncool birthday! Mummy’s birthday this year involved no cake cutting as usual, but my dad got her a BlackBerry. Her phone rang the vintage phone ringtone to the first call that she received on it. Now, this is your signature tone, Mr. BB? With Airtel pitching in A. R. Rehman to make a jingle for them, and Nokia having a signature tone too, I was shocked at how the dudes at RIM chose to stick to the true roots of telephone communication just like Bappi sticks to bongo beats and sitar like electric guitar music in the name of Disco. Having had to deal with transferring contacts, mumma gave up on her new possession. Dad started using it, and like I said, anything related to a birthday celebration goes to waste for the elders in my family.

But my birthdays have been fun in their own simple way. Being the eldest child in the family is the best thing ever. It gets you the maximum number of kid pictures, the most amount of pampering, and the maximum number of arguments among elders when it comes to giving you a name. Sarthak is what they chose for me, pretty obviously. But there are some who’s parents haven’t been kind enough to give them a name to be proud of. Take Bappa Lahiri for example. I’m sure his playschool classmates must’ve spent their time reciting Bappa Bappa Black Sheep all through till they passed their twelfth grade. Poor kid has had to deal with his dad’s fixation with his own name. Ah, that gets me back to your darling BlackBerry. First came the Curve, and then the Curve 3G! I'll give a tie to both Bappi and BB for the My-Vocabulary-Is-Confined-To-My-Name-And-The-Word-Sucks Award for innovation in naming their successors.

I finally got myself an Android last month. My email notifications are as prompt as sanitary pad advertisements during dinner time and the Whatsapp Messenger works faster than your BBM. The Skype app keeps me in touch with my friends staying far away from home, while you struggle to find a download for your Curve. Swype makes texting on a touchscreen easy, and Blogger makes me put up posts like the one you're reading straight on the website from my phone.

So you can go ahead and tease me with your BappiBerry, ‘cuz neither do I care for its BlackBerryMessenger nor BadBappiMusic.

Image Source: IDontCareTwoHootsForIfBappiLahiriWantsToSueMe.com