Kispay ! Kispe bharosa karoon ?

 

Kispay !  Kispe bharosa karoon ?

Many years ago,  I was one of the first few people who signed up for Paytm. 

This was much before the demonetisation days.  UPI PAYMENTS were not so popular in the pre -demonetisation era. I was sold out on the idea and truly thought it was cool and exclusive thing to be signing up for the digital way of payments through the phone without having to handle cash.   

With demonetisation, Paytm had the first mover advantage and a windfall considering its business model scaled up due to that what management consultants would term as the ' black swan event'  called demonetisation. Until then currency notes and funkily shaped coins would go out of print and mint and fade away from public memory every now and then. It  was all seamless and painless and nobody really gave it a thought leave alone give it a name. 

This was before ‘demonetisation’ became an adjective, verb and assumed historical significance. It has since then become  the much abused 14 letter  (un)parliamentary word’ in India and possibly elsewhere. For a long time coin and currency collectors made a fortune out of their hobby as Indian currency notes and coins went out of circulation and became a colletor's delight. 

Never before had anyone appeared to make an announcement at dinner time on national television channels about a certain currency note going out of circulation and shake up an entire nation  and send everyone scurrying to squabble with their bank tellers. 

Be that as it may, no one predicted that  digital India would go almost cashless in a few years to come. 

Thanks to COVID that followed a few years after demonetisation, every digitally savvy Indian cringed at the very thought of handling cash.  

You never knew when and who picked or wiped their nose ( or any other body part) before opening their wallet and hand out the cash to an unsuspecting shop keeper who then handed it to another and then to another and then you ended up being the unfortunate victim from the nasal remains that sheltered that deadly virus in that long chain of cash transfer.  

There was no scientific evidence that Coronavirus could survive and  spread through the remnants of currency notes handed over by those who swiped their fingers after wiping their noses or other body parts.  

But no one took any chances.  

It was what historians of the twenty second century would describe as the era of heightened hygiene in the attitude of the otherwise easy going digital Indian who was known to go easy when it came to public hygiene and cleanliness. 

Digital Analysts who tracked data from various sources from that era would tell you that in those years  even the most hopeless alcoholic consumed less alcohol in an entire year compared to the hygiene conscious tetotaller digital Indian whose consumption of alcohol soared every time she soaked her hands (and other body parts) with sanitizers that promised to kill the deadly virus in no time. 

The Coronavirus was god sent for the young and ambitious startup that launched Paytm. Their timing was impeccable.  The next morning after that dinner time announcement on national television they put out a front page ad in leading newspapers about this new digital payment app called Paytm. 

Trust me when I say they could have had no  insider information on this. The god of good fortune was on their side a day after that eventful night.  

In the months that followed, no one blamed them for disrupting the credit card and debit card market.  They came in believing that the cashless payment wallets could peacefully coexist with the VISA and Mastercards of the world. There were no lobbyists lobby hard against UPI unlike in the other ‘developed’ economies. Closer home there were not too many competitors in that space either.  

‘ Proudly handcrafted in India’ read its tagline and it appealed to all the ‘make in India ‘ fans like me.  

A little trivia revealed that they had their main server which stored all our data was located in some unholy place in China, believed to be the birth country of the Corona Virus. It still did not deter the ‘make in India’ fans and we conveniently looked over the server location, since we were being served very well with enticing discounts and cash backs.     

Unlike many others, I have had a long standing and monogamous relationship with my  UPI id.  

Off late I am grieving  because the app with which I have used my UPI id has betrayed me.   

I suspect my paytm app is being subject to some technical glitch or malicious bug. 

A few weeks ago I was automatically logged out and now I am being asked to login again if  I want to transact through paytm. 

You would say that is a fair thing to ask from a data security point of view. 

However now I am asked to cumpulsorily tick ( the tick appears by default) that feature which says, I allow access to my WhatsApp to Paytm and for it to access my credit beaureau report. 

If I untick that feature, I am logged out automatically. Technically it is not even a choice.  

I feel cheated and betrayed.  

Who does that ?

WhatsApp is your competitor damn it !!!  

Why would you want to sell my data to them ? 

You too Brutus !!! 

You too ... sucking up to Suckerbug  !!!  

I have been your faithful customer and I am not that naive when you say my data is 'secure' with you.  

You ask me why I am feeling cheated and betrayed ?  

It feels like my long standing partner is selling me out like a whore to that ugly world where data privacy is increasingly becoming a big joke.  

I do not feel safe and secure with you anymore. 

Don’t cajole me with your deep discounts and cash back offers.  

I know, I hopelessly fell in love with you for all those sweet somethings that you sent me and the and silly cash backs that you dangled before me during our courtship days. Truth be told, they amounted to nothing.

Now,  I know better.  

You followed me. 

You tracked me, everywhere I went, everyone I met and possibly everything I spoke.  

You tracked me and you tricked me.  

The last time I was standing in the long queue outside the passport office and bought myself a sandwich and a drink, I got this message asking me to call up this agency that guaranteed a visa, a job offer and later a citizenship in Canada or to a much warmer and prettier Australia, if I so wish.  

For a moment it really rekindled my 'on-off' relationship with God. 

I thought God was really answering my prayers and made a mental note to call up that immigration agency once my passport was renewed.  

As I nibbled on that soggy sandwich, I shoulder surfed and read the message on the mobile phone of the guy who was sitting besides me  at the passport office. He had scanned the UPI code from his mobile and had bought himself a stale, smelly and  oily samosa a few minutes earlier from that kiosk. He got exactly the same message. 

A thousand such messages later, I think I am now wiser.  

Don’t you dare, whore me out to every desperate seller out there on the digital street.  

 

I have spent an entire week without using my UPI id.   

I have enough immunity to fight the virus and bacteria, amoeba and Protozoa that may lurk beneath those soiled currency notes. 

Atleast they would never track me to figure out which beauty parlour I go to and what exactly I get done out there.  

I have had enough.  

I have deleted my  app. 

It was a long standing relationship and there were good moments as long as it lasted. 

I wanted to move on ... 

I wanted to digitally untangle myself. 

I unsintalled the app.   

A  week later ... 

I did not expect to grieve like a much married widow.  

But then here I am. 

I have run out of  petty cash. 

I owe money to the shopkeeper, to the milkman, to the  ladies who organised the kitty party, the vegetable seller and even my domestic help.  This lady who sold me a nicely spiced up Corn cob would not believe that I had cash, I had a smartphone but no paytm.  

I gave her twenty and promised to come back with a fiver as soon as I get one.    

They all look down upon me if I ask them if they will accept cash.  

I know what they are thinking. 

I swear I never pick my nose ( or wipe any other body parts) before handling currency notes.  

But no.  They would rather let me remain in their debt than take cash  !!!  

Digital India is no country for anyone who wants to attain Digital moksha.   

And so here ends my monogamous relationship with my longstanding UPI id . 

GPay 

Razor pay

PhonePe

Amazonpay

whatsapp pe

Kispay !  Kispe bharosa karoon ?

P:S : Paytm - no bad feelings. 

And all you other Suckerbugs,  do not send crawlers to my blogpost, my email , my mobile number and to all my contacts from the digital world.