The iPhone faithful outside Imagine, the Apple store at Quest, minutes before the midnight launch. Pictures by Amit Datta and Rashbehari Das

“The baby…the baby is here,” screamed the Murarkas in unison as the clock struck midnight on Thursday.

iPhone 6, the smartest baby on the smartphone block, had just been unboxed in Calcutta to gasps and cheers from crowds of mostly Apple loyalists gathered outside select stores across the city.

Until a week ago, businessman Anup Murarka hadn’t even imagined he would go shopping for a phone at midnight. Neither had hundreds of others who visited malls across the city to buy or just get a feel of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus that Apple had unveiled last month to record sales in many parts of the world.

Anup was at The MobileStore in City Centre Salt Lake with brother Anil to buy two units of the iPhone 6: one for his son Sparsh, a Class X student at La Martiniere For Boys, and the other for his nephew Anmol, a second-year student of Bhawanipur Education Society College.

Imagine, the Apple store at Quest mall, saw a crowd forming before 11pm. The lights at the Park Circus shopper’s stop were still on at that hour but it was the 200-plus gathering outside his store that dazzled Sanjay Chordia, the owner of Imagine at Quest. “Calcutta doesn’t sleep anymore. This is the first time that the iPhone is being launched across India at midnight. Earlier, the launch would have happened during regular business hours. I have never even imagined people here buying phones at midnight,” he said.

Chordia, whose shop remained open till 5am, sold 300-plus units priced between Rs 53,500 (16GB model of iPhone 6) and Rs 80,500 (128GB model of iPhone 6 Plus). The first lot at Imagine was sold out overnight and the next batch is expected to arrive in a week. “Demand for the iPhone 5S was good but for 6 (the sale ratio between 6 and 6 Plus was 70:30 at his store), it has been phenomenal. People now understand what the iPhone stands for — quality,” Chordia said.

Quality sealed the deal for Indraraj Gupta, an astrologer who walked into Quest with two phones from the Steve Jobs, err Tim Cook, stable — the 5 and 5S — and walked out with another 64GB model of the iPhone 6. “Apple means high-tech products and this (the iPhone 6) is a beautiful, slim phone in a metal body. A person driving a Merc automatically falls into a different segment and the same goes for the iPhone,” the 38-year-old said.

For Indraraj, getting the iPhone 6 on the night of its India launch was not just about buying on a whim. It was a celebration capped by dining out.

“When I had called home, my wife said there was no food at home. That gave me the opportunity to also dine out,” he smiled.

He wasn’t the only one to feast on sandwiches at Q33. Cappuccinos, lattes, sandwiches and cheesecakes flew off the cafe counter at Quest like on any other business day, thanks to the iPhone launch.

It wasn’t much different at the South City Mall, bathed in light and centrally cooled past its bedtime just for the iPhone launch. All levels of the parking lot were abuzz well past midnight for the first day-first show of the latest iPhones at stores on three different levels of the Prince Anwar Shah Road address.

A steady stream of buyers walked into the stores with a spring in their step to pick up phones they had been craving for months and which some had pre-booked several days ago.

While most buyers came with friends or family members in tow to share their special moment, the first person to lay his hands on the coveted gadget at the Mall was software consultant Anirban Guha, 39, an Apple fan who uses the iMac as well.

Anirban was picking up his fifth iPhone, having owned every version since the iPhone 4. “Apple products are very stable. I am excited about the A8 chip in the new phone,” said the Jadavpur resident, who picked up a 6 Plus at Currents, the Apple store.

In the same store was a family of Apple followers who had come to buy the iPhone 6 for Slok Poddar, 21, a college student upgrading from the 4s. Accompanying him were his sister Sakshi, a Class XII student of GD Birla School, who uses an iPhone 5, and parents Sanjay and Poonam.

Sanjay, a tax consultant, is an iPhone 5s user, and wife Poonam has an iPhone 4.

Of the three stores at the mall, Bhagwati clocked the highest sales with 48 units.

Among the buyers at the mall was a young man from Metiabruz whose fascination for Apple had started with owning the iPhone 3G when he was 13, refused to unbox his latest acquisition because it was a gift for his “significant” other. “You can take my picture tomorrow because I will be back to get an iPhone 6 Plus for myself,” he said.

Unlike in Perth where a young man named Jack Cooksey had accidentally dropped his new iPhone the night it released on September 19, Gaurav Jain, a third-year BBA student and the first buyer at the Imagine store in Quest, was extra careful. He slowly removed the phone from the box and held it up for the crowd to gawk at. It was, after all, a dream gift for his birthday, still a week away.

The crowded counters at Imagine, the Apple store at the Quest mall, at 12.04am. Pictures by Amit Datta and Rashbehari Das

Blackberry dad, iPhone daughter

Spotted at: Bhagwati, South City Mall

Daddy’s darling Anushka Binani, a Class XI student at La Martiniere for Girls, was making the switch from Android to iOS and what better way to do that than with the latest iPhone.
“I got to know from friends that iPhones offer a very different kind of experience and had been waiting for this launch for months,” said Anushka, all smiles while posing with her new toy well past bedtime.

Father Sudarshan, owner of Himalaya Opticals, chose to stick to his BlackBerry. “I have to travel a lot and send emails from my phone. I am too comfortable with the single digit keypad of my BlackBerry to change to anything else.”
The two promised to be back at the store on Friday or over the weekend to buy accessories for Anushka’s phone.

Three cousins, seven phones

Spotted at: Bhagwati, South City Mall

Cousins Sonam Osatwal, Vishal Osatwal and Ravi Bhalotia of Ballygunge picked up as many as seven phones — six units of iPhone 6 and one iPhone 6 Plus — from the Bhagwati store. As they fiddled with their precious gadgets, others who had pre-booked the phone got worried if there would be enough units left.

Stocks arrived at the outlet a little after midnight and Sonam, a Class XII student at Calcutta International School, was the first one in queue. By the time the formalities were complete and someone opened the cellophane covering of the case with a ballpoint pen, she was jumping up and down in excitement.

“All our cousins couldn’t come at this late hour, so we are picking up the phones for them,” said Sonam, for whom this is her fourth iPhone after having started with version 4.
Bhalotia, owner of a sari store near Forum, bought an iPhone 6 Plus.

Friends BOND OVER iPHONE

Spotted at: Apple store, South City Mall

College unity was on show at the Apple store at South City Mall with as many as four college buddies from Bhawanipur Education Society accompanying third-year BCom (honours) student Subham Agarwal.

An iPhone user since 2011, Subham was graduating straight from the 4s to 6, having given versions 5 and 5s the miss.

As soon as Subham took out the iPhone from its case, pals Vishal, Udhav, Rohit and Ayush broke into applause and closed in to pose for a picture.

“I wanted to witness this moment when this world-famous phone would be launched in my city, and that too at midnight. Besides, I wanted to be part of Subham’s big moment,” said Vishal, who uses an iPad 2.

Off the pitch

Spotted at: Apple store, Quest mall

Joydeep Mukherjee, former Bengal cricketer and coach of the state A team, arrived minutes before midnight to join the Apple party and he was soon getting a feel of the iPhone 6, just like the other 200-odd people who had turned up.

“I have been using Apple products for years and love the way all of them play with one another. An Apple user will always stick to Apple products. The last time I used a phone from another brand was seven years ago,” the die-hard Apple fan said.

Any special feature on his wishlist? “There are plenty but I am also looking forward to a lighter phone.”

And with that he shifted to Steve Jobs-fan mode. “If Steve Jobs were around, he would have been happy. He was a technological genius and I am a big fan of his.”

Why would/wouldn’t you step out to buy a phone at midnight? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com