Back from Russia, Blocked from UPI: My Accidental Digital Exile

It was quite a good journey. While the flight cruised peacefully above the clouds and everyone around me drifted into sleep, I sat awake, trying to piece together a story about the last six days — days well spent wandering the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Eventually, I too gave in to sleep, lulled by the hum of the engines and the softness of memories.

I was woken up by the captain’s voice over the PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking from the flight deck. We’ve now started our descent into Trivandrum International Airport. The local time is 5:30 in the morning, and the weather is currently clear with a temperature of 31 degrees Celsius.”

As if on cue, the cabin stirred to life. Seatbelts clicked open prematurely, and passengers sprang up as if at the sound of a starting gun. Bags were yanked from overhead bins in a frenzy, and before the plane had even touched the tarmac, a race had already begun, a race to the immigration counter. At the immigration counters in Trivandrum, officers with sleepy eyes bid farewell to all of us, while a few passengers jumped the queue for no apparent reason. The process in India, however, felt like a breeze compared to the grumpy, grouchy officers we had encountered at Domodedovo International Airport, about 42 kilometers from Moscow city.

A few days back, we had landed in Domodedovo, the second busiest international airport in Moscow, with the mindset that Russia, being aided by India’s continued purchase of Russian oil when many other nations had stopped, would welcome us warmly as Indians. However, the experience turned out to be quite the opposite. It was far from pleasant for me.

The immigration officer, a beautiful young woman without even an ounce of a smile on her face, asked me to step back from the counter. Moments later, on her call, another officer escorted me to a group of travellers of various nationalities, Africans, Chinese, Indians, Europeans, all anxiously waiting for their passports. Spotting a few familiar faces from our group was mildly reassuring, though everyone around looked equally tense. As the minutes turned into an hour, a stern-faced lady with an equally stern voice began calling out names from a pile of passports. Ours were not among them. One by one, the African travelers received their documents and left. A few Mongolian-looking passengers, possibly Chinese, were taken back into the airport, apparently due to serious issues with their passports.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the officer returned. She tried to pronounce my name, “Bijoy Prabhakaran Pulipra,” but failed. Then she attempted another — “Karattiyil Balakrishnan Nair Jayakrishnan” — and, of course, failed miserably. The disappointment and frustration that had built up within us suddenly turned into laughter, and to our surprise, she too joined in, laughing along with us. At last, she handed over the entire set of passports, and we left the area with a deep sigh of relief. Then the tour went on. My mobile had barely worked in Moscow, despite several attempts to troubleshoot the roaming service and even making an extra payment through GPay to extend it.

Finally, after the immigration at Trivandrum Airport, we collected our luggage and headed to the prepaid taxi counter. As I settled into the taxi, a familiar ting tone from my phone signalled that I was finally back in Jio’s network coverage — a small but comforting reminder of home. We reached home, the place we had left behind just seven days ago, though it felt much longer. I opened GPay on my phone to pay the taxi fare, only to be met with an unexpected shock: my GPay account had been blocked. I had no cash with me, except for a few leftover rubles, which of course, I couldn’t offer the driver. In the age of digital payments, I had completely given up the habit of carrying a wallet, and this was the moment it came back to haunt me.

To make matters worse, I soon discovered that my phone number was nowhere to be found in the banking system of India— all because of the simple mistake of making a UPI payment from abroad. My number had been delinked from every platform, and not even my home bank seemed to recognise my existence in this financial world. Yes, I am in a digital exile, and I became an alien, all of a sudden. That was a point of revelation for me; it is very hard to live in this world without UPI. I slowly realised that I did not know how to rebook an LPG cylinder, pay electricity bills, book a taxi, or pay my FASTag without it. When I went to watch a movie at PVR, I could not miss the feeling of repulsion on the face of the boy at the counter when I said I did not have GPay. Somehow, I managed to make the payment using my card, though I almost forgot the PIN in the process. Then I called, pleaded, begged, and even cried for help with the girl in HDFC’s customer care, asking her to recognise my existence in this world and give me back my financial identity — the UPI. But everything went in vain. Nothing has happened for the last many days, and now I am slowly learning to live in this world without UPI.

Slowly and gradually, I have started learning how to withdraw money from ATMs. I have started using my card to swipe at POS machines — and yes, that too is an interesting way of making payments.

Bijoy Pulipra (On digital arrest by HDFC!)