This is the story of how a shockingly purple color changed my life. Ah, well. Let’s settle down to “made my day”.
However, to be enlightened further, we need to go back in time a bit. It starts with the advent of my brand new BlackBerry phone a year and a half back. Oh, wait, it actually starts here, when I bought, after much discussion and debate, the beauty that is the Nokia 6500 slide. And, then when I had to forcibly replace it with the BB, because my beloved did not have this feature called “push mail”.
Sad were those days when, in a fit of revolt against my own decision, I depressed myself further by barring music and photos from the BB, making it an ideal example of just how those caricatures depict it – dull, boring and so official-looking it is almost officious.
I am getting carried away here and I don’t think BB aficionados are going to like me too much post this post. I do like the BBM (the messenger, for the uninitiated) though, and that is the only reason I held on to the phone this long. And, also because of a sudden loyalty towards the device, which has worked faithfully after being dunked in water and tea and myriad other things.
Also, if you know me well, you will know that I am wont to dropping myself and my devices left, right and center. So, the cheap, greyish-black, dirty, old BB might still have been the best bet in saving me some money and lot of heartbreak.
But, you know how it is with obsessions. A few months back, I really got into my head that I had to add color to my life. And, the only way I could think of doing it was by getting a nice and fun phone. I have a fetish for phones, rather, funky gadgets, much like the fetish V has for watches.
Nice and fun (in phones) to me means good looks, nice camera, nice music player, integration with my other gadgets and a funky brand. There, we almost have the answer now I guess. But, there was still one more important question I had to answer.
How expensive should it be? Someone once remarked that one should not buy a phone that is as expensive as, or more expensive than an LCD TV. I have no use for LCD TVs as they cannot keep moving along with me. And, if I am going to consume something only once a week or once a month, I may as well not buy it right? Such are the rationalizations I gave myself for going behind an expensive, nice and fun phone.
Oh, before actually buying it, I ate the heads of at least 10 people, 3-4 constantly, asking, “Should I? Shouldn’t I?” My mom came up with the worthiest answer to that question. She said, “You like it a lot and want it badly. No one is going to gift it to you. I definitely have no intentions of gifting it to you. That phone’s price is not coming down in the near future. And, my ears are sick and tired of listening to your everyday rant of how badly you need it. So, please go ahead and gift yourself one and end the story right here.”
As an aside, my friend says that Mom might have made a better consultant than me. Thankfully not! Competition reduced, substantially.
That brings us to the end of the story, well almost. If you remember, we have not covered the “purple” part yet. No, I did not buy myself a purple phone. These phones come only in black and white, and I of course love the damn color which is not even a color apparently – black. But, I had strict instructions from near and dear to buy a cover for my black, LCD-ish phone, so that I don’t kill it almost immediately after buying it.
At the shop, they did not have a black skin. The salesman told me, “Madam, you are dressed in purple today. You should definitely buy this purple skin”. And, I bought it. It made me happier than even buying the phone.
I do not anymore remember this girl in me who hated the Sony Vaio’s colorful laptop ads!
Today morning, my colleague exclaimed, “What happened to that nice black phone you acquired last week?” Well, learn to live with its purple skin. God knows, this office needs quite a bit of color to balance out all the BBs around. No?
