How Fortell Helped Rajen Find His Way Back to the Family Table

Rajen has never been one to slow down. As a retired finance director who once oversaw systems for a firm spanning 150 countries, his life has always been defined by communication and precision. Even now in retirement he remains active, spending his days outdoors, enjoying time with grandchildren, or immersed in his latest book. 

However,  two decades ago, a challenge began to pull at the edges of his confidence. In the early 2000s, Rajen noticed subtle changes in his hearing. At first, he resisted the truth. “There was a level of stigma with hearing loss,” Rajen said. “I thought, I’m young, if I wear a hearing aid, I don’t know how others will feel.”

Conventional hearing aids offered little relief

By 2019, Rajen’s grandkids were two and four years old. Their high-pitched laughs and whispered secrets were slipping away from him. "That was the point where I didn’t care about the stigma anymore," he said.

He purchased his first pair of hearing aids, but they didn’t offer much relief. While they were considered top-of-the-line, they operated on a traditional, static logic: they were essentially "volume knobs" tuned to his specific hearing loss. The devices would amplify certain frequencies, but they couldn't distinguish between his grandchild’s voice and the background clatter of a crowded restaurant.

Because these hearing aids amplified every sound within specific frequencies equally, loud environments became a chaotic wall of noise. Instead of bringing clarity, the devices often made the world feel more overwhelming than if he had worn nothing at all. 

When the family would sit down together for a meal at home or in a noisy restaurant, Rajen would often fall silent, withdrawing from conversations until his daughter or wife noticed and tried to pull him back in.

Fortell AI Hearing Aids were categorically different

The breakthrough came when Rajen’s daughter read about Fortell in a Wired article. Seeing a chance for her father to reconnect, she booked an appointment and firmly encouraged him to go.

After he was fitted with his new hearing aids, his audiologist, Dr. Kathleen, invited him to try them outside in the street noise where she said he would really notice the difference. Rajen and his wife walked with Dr. Kathleen to a nearby deli and he was immediately struck by the clarity. 

“I could definitely hear the difference right away and how much that difference was. It was a big change,” he said.  In the middle of lunchtime rush with clattering plates and multiple overlapping conversations, Rajen could clearly hear his wife and Dr. Kathleen while maintaining a sense of the environment around him. 

“I could definitely hear the difference right away and how much that difference was. It was a big change.”

A new chapter for Rajen

Life today looks and sounds very different for Rajen. The quiet man at the dinner table has been replaced by someone who is fully present. He is no longer lost in the many voices of a family dinner; he is back in the mix, contributing to the stories and the laughter.

The most rewarding sounds he hears clearly now are the voices of his grandchildren. His grandkids have a nickname for him: Nanu. “Nanu,” they tell him with big smiles “you can hear us better.” Those words are the only feedback that matters.

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