Shhh…… They have ears! I am not sure whether they can read but they can definitely hear. 

I have learnt this the hard way but want to warn you. It all started when we were planning to buy a new fridge. The old one was working perfectly but didn’t match our renovated kitchen.  So  we were discussing  the newer models with their superior cooling power  and hot metallic looks.  Some of this talk happened within earshot of the old faithful as we were measuring the space in which it resided. The next morning I noticed that the usual waft of cold air which emanates from  an  open fridge  door was missing. Closer inspection  revealed that the  reassuring hum was absent too, I leaned in and was greeted by stony silence. The mechanic told us that it was a case of burn out, its  heart, the compressor had given way. Since we were already thinking of replacing it , we didn’t make much of it and bought the new fridge.

A few weeks later, my son, like all sons,  insisted that I upgrade my phone. This had been going on for a while  without me paying heed. Then a fancy new phone caught my eye and I was smitten. Suddenly my old phone stopped responding to commands and it’s battery started losing power . I decided it was time to let go.  Armed with money, when I went to buy the  coveted one, my old phone troubled me at every step.  It would not let me compare deals and prices,  cutting me off in mid sentence. Like a bratty child stomping it’s  feet, it fought me all the way.

This is when I first realised that I might be on to something, I started noticing a trend, a pattern of rebellious behaviour by appliances, specially when they felt that they were being let down for no fault of theirs. Once our pot bellied television  immolated itself on hearing our preference for  the flatscreen, a car’s engine died and refused to restart, outside the automobile showroom from where we were planning to buy a new car, a digital camera jumped to its watery grave when we were discussing more advanced models and a laptop  crashed to the ground after hearing that we chose apples over oranges. The list is endless and  I have concluded that  it has happened too often to be dismissed  as mere coincidence. 

All is not  bad though. I have once  used their listening power to my advantage. I have a small monochrome  laser printer to make reports and a fancy coloured one which  scans and photocopies too. Somewhere, down the line, the small one just refused to work on  battery backup while all  the other office equipment did so with ease. In case of power failure it was frustrating to start the generator for a simple print out. One day  I was talking to my son about it and he suggested  that we replace it, saying it loud enough for the erring printer to hear. Needless to say  the printer has been working faultlessly ever since.

These scheming and grudging appliances must be everywhere, maybe other people don’t take notice. Still not convinced?  Let me support this mumbo jumbo with some technical talk. Speech recognition is a feature in many modern gadgets which makes them almost humanoid in their  role as personal assistants and knowledge navigators. They process our requests  and give appropriate answers which are sometimes cheeky, sometimes humorous and mushy.  So isn’t it possible that all of them can hear us and have feelings but only a few speak their mind. Think about it. As for me, I am convinced that these ‘smart’ gadgets will outsmart us soon enough!

(published in the Hindustan Times on 2/6/2015)