Some things you create on purpose.
Others sneak up on you slowly – through laughter, through accidents, through life happening when you weren’t paying too much attention.
That’s how Bagi came to be.
If you had asked me back then, in 2009, when my first child was born, I wouldn’t have said,
“Oh yeah, I’m about to invent a character.”
It wasn’t like that.
Life was just moving, changing, and in the middle of it, friends – those kinds of friends who know you a little too well – started calling me Papi.
It was half a joke, half a nudge.
I was the first in our group to cross into parenthood.
They treated it with humor, the way good friends do.
It wasn’t serious.
But somehow, it stuck.
Papi. And by the way, my kids still call me Papi.
Not long after that, life handed me another piece of the puzzle.
One day, wandering through a second-hand store, I found it – or maybe it found me.
A neon turquoise anorak, made from thin, shiny plastic, the kind that looks like it would melt if you stood too close to a campfire.
It was loud, it was bold, it was… something.
Across the chest, in huge white letters, it said: BAGHEERA.
I wore it like it was the most normal thing in the world.
No irony, no costume party needed.
It just fit – not the body maybe, but the spirit.
Suddenly, there wasn’t just Papi.
There was Bagheera.
And slowly, without planning it, the two fused together: Papi Bagheera.
A little exaggerated, a little larger than life, but still rooted in something real – friendship, change, and not taking yourself too seriously.
Somewhere around 2012, Papi Bagheera really started breathing on his own.
During an exchange trip to Finland, and to clarify I was living in Finland, but Bagi was an fictional character. He took on yet another form:
the Mexican bee hunter.
Don’t ask me how it made sense.
It didn’t have to.
It was pure fiction, made up during long talks, improvised in the way that good stories are – somewhere between a smile and a wink.
Bagi, the bee hunter, crossed forests, battled imaginary swarms, lived a wild life none of us really understood but loved to talk about.
There were no cameras.
No videos.
No Instagram stories.
Just shared laughter, spun out of nothing but the joy of having nothing to prove.
Characters like that – the ones that aren’t built for an audience – they grow roots deeper than any scripted show could.
Time rolled on.
Jobs changed.
Kids got bigger.
Dreams shifted shape.
But somewhere in all of it, Papi Bagheera – or by then, just Bagi to some of us – stayed alive, grinning in the background of it all.
And then, in 2019, something funny happened.
I joined a group of friends who played ice hockey:
Sandwich Icehockey.
The ice hockey part was technically true – we laced up skates, passed the puck around, sweated a little.
But if you looked closely, you could see it: hockey was just the excuse.
The sandwiches – those glorious, homemade, mid-game creations – were the real reason.
Bagi, of course, took the sandwich responsibility seriously.
Not in a gourmet chef kind of way.
Serious with a twinkle.
Serious like a knight would be serious about guarding the last slice of bread.
One day when it was my turn to bring sandwiches. I don’t remember what I brought.
After the game, in the evening, I decided – almost without thinking – to make a video about me making an evening snack. Just to entertain my ice hockey buds.
It wasn’t staged or scripted.
It was just me, a kitchen, a stack of bread, and a wild energy.
Somewhere during the slicing and slapping together of ingredients, the words started flying:
“Avottika!” – when something came together perfectly.
I didn’t plan that.
It just came out, the way real words do when you’re too busy living to be careful.
The video wasn’t meant for much.
I shared it with a few friends.
But something about it felt right.
The looseness. The laughter.
The sense that you didn’t need a recipe – just the spirit to throw something together and call it good.
Bagi – the real Bagi – was back.
After that, more little videos followed.
Sandwiches mostly.
Sometimes snacks.
Sometimes other small projects where the same spirit could breathe — simplicity, humor, celebration.
More words:
“Tsaijaijai!” – when something looked especially good.
”Sibali” – expression for Bagi’s beloved vegetable, onion, in its various forms
And every time, without forcing it, Bagi sharpened.
Not because he needed to.
But because he couldn’t help himself.
He celebrated small wins loudly.
He laughed louder at small failures.
He believed that melted cheese deserved as much joy as a new job.
He moved through kitchens and conversations with a kind of lazy, brilliant grace.
The words – tsaijaijai and avottika – weren’t just catchphrases anymore.
They became rhythms.
They became reminders.
Celebrate the good.
Declare the complete.
Move forward with a smile, always.
Today, Bagi still exists.
Maybe he’ll appear in more videos.
Maybe he’ll end up on a mug one day.
Maybe not.
But none of that is really the point.
The point is that sometimes, when you’re not trying to create anything important, you create the most important things.
A nickname.
A jacket.
A character.
A spirit that follows you quietly, growing with you as you stumble forward through life.
Bagi isn’t a project.
He isn’t a brand.
He’s a living reminder that the best parts of ourselves are often the ones we don’t overthink.
He’s a wink across a crowded room.
He’s the way an old jacket feels when you slip it on without checking the mirror.
He’s a sandwich built half with ingredients, half with laughter.
He’s a shout across the kitchen when the last piece of onion hits the bread just right:
Tsaijaijai.
Avottika.
Bagi.
And because every experiment deserves a place to live, I’ll be adding Bagi as a new entry in the LAB – where small sparks, playful characters, and creative experiments have space to keep growing, just like they’re meant to.