Bye bye BlackBerry: Mumbaikars get wistful as company pulls the plug on the iconic phone

Remember being in college and sharing your BB Pin with your friends so you could chat with them on BlackBerry Messenger (BBM)? For the luxury of instant messaging and the clickity-clack QWERTY keypad, the high-end phone - aimed mainly at business executives once - became a rage among teenage users around the world by the late 2000s. Mumbai was no exception.

The BlackBerry phone was launched and released as a business phone for the purpose of sending emails, as well as instant messaging through BBM with the help of the QWERTY keypad. Former US President Barack Obama and Kim Kardashian are known to be some of the biggest loyalists of the device. Earlier this week, Blackberry Ltd., formerly known as Research in Motion, based in Ontario, Canada, said it would stop support for the devices running with its software, from January 4. In a statement, the company said "the devices will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality".

Being an important part of the lives of many college- and office-goers in the city, before the onset of touch-screen smartphones, there is more nostalgia associated with the phone and Mumbaikars aren't happy with its end, even though it went off the shelf years ago. "Can we bring them back?" asks Rasika Pote. "BBM was Cupid for so many love stories." The city-based filmmaker owned one for four years before the battery stopped working. "I was gifted the phone by my partner on my 21st birthday," she says, adding, "BBM was my favourite feature because it used to help share songs you are listening to and communicate your feelings to the person you wanted to."

She owned the Nokia 5233 before and the iPhone 4 after that but still has her old BlackBerry Torch tucked away somewhere in her parents' house because it was difficult to part with. "I don't have the courage to throw it away because of so many memories attached."

The tone of the Blackberry Messenger was music to her ears, says 31-year-old Pote, because it always brought good news to her. "The phone was not just a device; it was more of a person to me. The QWERTY keypad with those tiny buttons made typing cute."

Former Mumbaikar Rowen D'Souza also enjoyed possessing the phone because of the keyboard. "Chatting became so easy. I was able to type so fast and so much that the tips of my thumbs had hardened," laughs the 32-year-old. He admits the fact that the BBM was trending was also why he loved the phone so much because otherwise the phone features and bad camera quality didn't appeal to him much at the time. "I felt like a businessman because BlackBerry was happening then and people would stare at the phone when it was in my hand because it was new," D'Souza recounts about the time he had just got the BlackBerry Curve in 2009.

Soon after he was able to afford a new phone, D'Souza, who remembers buying the phone for Rs 9,000 from his mother's office phone dealer, says he sold it to a friend for Rs 4,500. "There was no sorrow whatsoever. I used it to my heart's content and then sold it," adds the hospitality professional.

Like Pote, the BlackBerry was more than a phone for Alisha Patel, a city-based communications professional. "It was the first ‘smartphone' I owned because before that I used ‘dabba' phones, which had barely any messaging or any other features," says the 30-year-old. Patel remembers the huge debate at the time which revolved around which operating system was better - Android vs BlackBerry, and she opted for the latter because of the BBM feature and the look of the phone.

She explains, "I remember giving someone my BB Pin was a matter of pride, to show off that I had one. It was also the first messaging platform of its kind that I used, so it was a lot of fun. Especially being able to update statuses and send files." The BB Pin or BlackBerry Pin was an eight character alphanumeric ID that every device had which could be used to message another BlackBerry device.

Patel, who also owned the BlackBerry Curve like D'Souza, bought hers in 2012, and misses it till date, after giving in to the hype around Android and wanting to try something new. "I genuinely miss the QWERTY keyboard. The one on the BB Curve was one of the best I ever used, and if there as a way to incorporate that keyboard with my current phone, I'm in," exclaims Patel, echoing the wistful sentiments of Pote and many others in the city who want the phone to come back in some way.

(With inputs from IANS)