MuckFlash

Chennai, IN -9 March 2009- Staff. Abhijit Padukone, a mobile phone vendor in a rural Southern Indian village, had a serious problem on his hands. For every five phones he would lease, two or three would come back irreparably damaged, or not at all.

“Impossible to break even, much less turn a profit,” remarked Mr. Padukone. “I was at my wits end.” Customers would regularly hijack whole phones, or return phones without their SIM cards or other essential parts. That is, until Mr. Padukone came up with an innovative new way to ensure that his customers would return regularly, with the merchandise intact.

After about six months of unsuccessfully badgering his customers into bringing back rental phones in one piece, Mr. Padukone finally engineered a method to ensure that all his phones would return whole and on time. Though threats, late fees and even remote disabling failed to stem thefts, Mr. Padukone finally found success by stripping the phone from its plastic case and embedding the electronic ‘guts’ of the phone inside an overly ripe mango.

“Just try and keep the phone longer than your time,” says Padukone, “If the smell and mush don’t get you, you’ll eventually be left with nothing but a pile of wires and fetid mango.” Further, the soft flesh of the mango and the random placement of electronics make it nearly impossible to remove or alter the electronics without risking damage. As well, there is an added social significance imbued by the mango phone.

When asked why patrons don’t simply transfer the electronics to another mango or similar fruit, Padukone merely shrugged. “It is the embarrassment, I think. A stolen phone, sure, you can hide that. But who wants to be the guy with the rotten mango phone?” he says. “It is entirely obvious if you’re speaking into a rotten mango that you’re a thief.”