On Gadgets, Evolution, and Learning to Recharge — In Every Sense

sanjanakrish
Nov 14, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Feb 3

An aha moment sparked by a pair of Apple headphones, tangled up with a surprisingly wise Cat in the Hat reminder from one of my favourite authors I once read to my son.

A Surprising Gift

Apple Max headphones — those big chonky ones. I had no clue they even existed until a couple of years ago when a dear friend from Singapore gifted us a pair. I nearly fell off my chair. I’d always thought AirPods were Apple’s only aural offering — not to be confused with aura, those concentric circles of cosmic energy you’re supposed to farm for good vibes. Mine, clearly, aren’t spinning.

And then came these — the AirPods’ overachieving cousins. Sleek, mean, Transformer-looking things that announce, “I have arrived.” The kind that don’t just play music; they build an impregnable fortress around your ears.

The First Encounter

At first, I was skeptical. Who needs something that big? But the first time I put them on — the world… vanished. The traffic hum, the chatter, the background chaos — all cancelled (in a nice way), replaced by calm. I caught myself smiling, not because of the song, but because of the silence it was wrapped in.

It was a revelation of sorts — a moment when I realized how horribly out of sync I was with the times. A tech ignoramus, gawking like a kid in a candy shop. My very wise twelve-year-old son stood next to me, tugged at my arm, and said, “Amma, you need to stop gaping… these have been around for years,” punctuating it with that knowing wink of tween superiority.

Erm. How does he know? Does that mean he’s spending more than his rationed time on the devices? My overworked brain, as usual, went into overdrive — though I have a far more aligned term for it: Holmesian maternal instinct.

Immersed in Sound

Anyway, I grabbed the headphones immediately and got down to using them. Be it a podcast, an Audible narration, or just some music while doing my chores — I always had them on, head bobbing from side to side, cocooned in my own little world.

Then, after a few weeks, the newness wore off. I was back to grabbing my regular pods before heading out for a run or slipping into my usual routine.

A Shift in Focus

My dad fell sick early this year. In the midst of caring for and tending to him, I forgot all about their existence. My walks turned into something different — fingers clasped in prayer, whispering healing mantras, wishing with every breath for his recovery.

My dad passed on. Many months later, I was back at work after a hiatus and desperately needed my pods — or the big ones — to help me segue back into hours of focus and unwavering attention. I chanced upon the headphones, lying buried under the tchotchkes in my cupboard — a quiet relic from another time.

The Frustration

I plugged it in to charge, hoping it would provide me with the much-needed focus to dive headlong into work. It charged for a few hours, and I came back later to check on the status. The phones were dead as ever — no white light blinking... nothing. My heart sank. I plugged it in again.

To no avail — the same story repeated itself after a few hours. I tried many a trick, changed the charger, made sure it sat snug in the socket. All futile; my efforts were in vain.

I was beside myself with frustration. I whined about life being unfair and the universe always conspiring to make things go awry for me. Muttering under my breath, I yanked the charger out and flung it on the bed, seething with anger.

The phone was being the Cat in the Hat — Dr. Seuss’s own — and I, the bat out of hell. I was owed at least small favours. I knew I was acting out — convinced that I was perfectly justified in reacting the way I did.

The Light of Hope

On a whim, I plugged it into another socket, and the light flickered a bit before dying out again. Thinking of the headphones as a write-off, soon to be junked, I reached for my old, trusty earpods and grudgingly made peace with it. What can one do but wring one’s hands in despair?

Out of nowhere, a neural pathway fired inside my head, quipping, “Don’t be the problem, be the solution.” Lo and behold, I grabbed my laptop and googled what could be wrong. An answer popped up almost immediately — charge with a low-wattage charger.

Ah, why didn’t I think of this? There was a perfectly plausible explanation after all. Hurrying out to the nearest Apple showroom, I got the required charger and plugged it in. The headphones sprang back to life. There has been no looking back since.

My Takeaway

I refelcted on the way i reacted and realised that it could have been handled better by not letting the annoyaces get the better of me. Seething with anger everytime when the stars dont align is akin to a hissing nuclear power plant. Case in point: even a seemingly harmless habit, like dropping the fish bomb can be misconstrued as an act borne out of anger.

Change can never be superficial; it has to permeate every cell of your being and radiate outward as a rippling movement. It is hard, and in my case, it doesn’t end with just recharging the device. Real change is aura farming done right.

Molecularly Yours,

Sanjana

Curiously Irrepressible

First dreamer. Accidental chemist @ Green Molecule - Clean Confidently