In the history of communication devices in India, pagers can get the page assigned to them. Pagers, which entered India in the mid-90s after economic liberalization in 1991, were a natural link between landlines and mobile phones. It will be difficult to explain to Generation Alpha what a floppy disc or CD player is. Pager, one such thing, has been surprisingly brought up in our conversations because of a miracle explosions in the hands and pockets of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
However, long before Lebanon The explosion is blamed on the Israeli spy agency Mossadin India it became very popular with pagers, in a harmless way.
Traditionally, pagers were a one-way communication toolwith which the user can receive messages but cannot reply. It had no speaker or camera. Therefore, cell phones quickly made pagers useless.
Movies, for one, are one of the most important pieces of technology to be archived. And pagers find their rightful place in Indian films. That is also due to the status that pagers had in Indian society, albeit for a short time.
Pagers were mainly used by delivery workers in the West. However, in India, which was enjoying economic freedom, the device found pride of place. The children with their eyes wide open were looking at the pagers attached to the belt of the handsome gentleman. Although there were a number of companies selling pagers in India, those of Motorola were the most popular.
How pagers were displayed in mid-90s India is shown by Anurag Kashyap in Gangs of Wasseypur 2.
The film, released in 2012 and re-released in August 2024, is about Jharkhand (then a part of Bihar) and its gangs in the 1990s. The main character, Faizal Khan (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui), shows off the pager as he arrives at the house of his lover Mohsina (played by Huma Qureshi).
Pager was not only used by Allu Arjun’s character Pushpa Raj, even Prime Video India used it to promote the film.
“What message can you post on Pushpa’s page?” it asked.
The humble pager also gets a quick mention in the iconic song ‘What is Mobile Number’ from David Dhawan’s film ‘Haseena Maan Jaayegi’ (1999).
In the song, the actor played by Govinda falls in love with Karishma Kapoor and asks for her mobile number, to which she replies:
“I’m sorry mobile nahi
This is the pager number”
Pager, however, is immortalized in Indian films by popular actor Satish Kaushik, who plays the role of Pappu Pager in Deewana Mastana.
If David Dhawan’s 1997 film, which had a star cast, is remembered today, it is because of Pappu Pager.
Sporting ‘tapori language’ with a floral shirt, sunglasses and a pager in hand, Satish Kaushik stood out, and Pappu Pager became another eternal character, like the Calendar from Mr India.
Pappu Pager continued to have a fan following of his own, and Satish Kaushik would often be referred to as Pappu Pager. After the death of Satish Kaushik in March last year, Govinda, who co-starred in the film, said that he was very sad that his Pappu Pager from Deewana Mastana is no more.
Pagers have played a blink-and-miss role when it comes to the Indian communication scene, but they have been an important evolutionary link between mobile phones and mobile phones. How it once became a product of longing is documented in Indian movies. Indians really smell good with pagers.