My 40-year-old friend Prakash uses a hearing aid. Nothing wrong with that, considering he is hearing-impaired from birth and depends on a small machine tucked behind his ear to hear the noises of this world. Until very recently, he was quite grateful for the latest in medical technology that gave him this chance to overcome his disability. But now he hates his hearing aid. Reason? His habit of humming a song while driving combined with his hearing aid equipment, which looks just like a Bluetooth headset, is proving too costly for him. In just the past week, four notices from the traffic police, with a penalty of Rs 1,500 rupees each, have dutifully arrived at his residence. His offence? ‘Using mobile phone while driving’. He feels like banging his head on the wall over this lack of sensitivity on the part of the overzealous traffic cops. We try and tell him that the cops are hardly to be blamed, seeing that his hearing aid does actually look like a wireless headset. Another friend pitches in and advises him to stop singing while driving. Well Prakash did try to keep a check on his tendency to croon with Kishore Kumar, but not with much success. So he decided to educate the cops instead. Recently, while driving back from work, he noticed a policeman in the rearview mirror who seemed to be noting down his car number. He stopped immediately, walked up to the cop and tried to reason with him that he was not talking on his mobile. The policeman, by now used to hearing all kinds of excuses from offenders, refused to believe him. Prakash even tried to show him his hearing aid and explain its purpose but the policeman didn’t seem interested at all. Prakash gave up arguing after a while, having understood that while the policeman seemed well-versed in the latest cell phone technology and Bluetooth headsets, he was obviously oblivious of the age-old technology of hearing aids. That was when Prakash made up his mind.He has now decided to contest his traffic challans in court.
