“Are you sure the bill has been paid?” Gautam Uncle wore a scowl as he watched me from a plastic chair on the verandah, paying his electricity bill with a few clicks on the computer. I could have paid it from the phone — and it would have been much quicker — but then I couldn’t have printed out a receipt for him. And without that solid piece of paper, he would never fully trust that the bill had been paid. Oh no, it wasn’t me he did not trust, just the computer.

My friend Suranjana — his daughter who lives in Delhi — could have paid the bill just as easily but she wouldn’t have been able to send him proof either. Therefore, she sent me the money and asked me to pay the bill under Gautam Uncle’s hawk eyes.

“It’s not easy to take me for a ride,” Uncle liked to say and he preferred to count his money twice before handing it over. The pandemic had, unfortunately, put paid to that. And, of course, he had never used his debit card for online transactions. Therefore the long drive to my home, the social distancing and being handed over the sanitised receipt.

Uncle’s reaction was no surprise to me because my father’s had been just the same. Their generation has a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that payments can be made at the click of a mouse. Baba had been looking worried for a few days but he refused to divulge the reason.

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. I had to wheedle it out of my mother. Caught by the lockdown, they had been unable make the quarterly visit to their Durgapur home to pay the bills — phone, electricity and water. When I told him I would take care of it, he dismissed the suggestion out of hand. “I won’t allow you to travel in this situation,” he said. When I told him I wouldn’t have to, he looked at me with disbelief. I have a feeling he is still expecting to be slapped with a year’s charges when he goes back, despite the crisp printouts he has filed in his receipts folder.

I thought my mother had adapted better. After a few wide-eyed looks at having everything from milk to mutton, fish to fresh fruits, dals to detergent delivered at the click of a button — albeit after a long while browsing — she seemed to take spending without a single trip to an ATM in her stride. Until she had to use her card to pay for medicines — delivered home, of course — and the man asked her to put in the PIN twice because the first transaction failed. She spent the night staring at her phone, waiting for the message that said her card had been debited again, despite the crisp receipt handed over to her and my many assurances. It wasn’t the machine she did not trust, just the man.

I thought that was unfair. I mean this is the woman who paid Rs 1,600 to a random deliveryman in 16 Rs 500 notes and, eventually, had the extra money returned!

But her trust issues with man were nothing compared to those with the e-gift coupon her brother sent for her birthday. The string of numbers and letters did not look very reassuring to her. How do you know it will work? How much is it worth? How do you know? How much do we have to buy to redeem it?

A month later, she still hasn’t used it. She is yet to find something she likes that is the exact amount; she will not let me pay the extra and neither will she believe my assurances that whatever is left can be used later. I am considering handing her the equivalent cash and using the coupon for monthly groceries. Mamu agrees it might be the best course.

Ma’s faith in online banking remains unshaken. Recently, I overheard her speaking to her sister. Mashi was having issues withdrawing cash as her bank was undergoing a merger. She would have to ask her grocer to let her buy on credit, she was grumbling.

“Why don’t you try buying online? We have been doing so for months,” my mother said. My short-haired, jeans-wearing, US-travelled aunt was categorical, “No, I will not expose the little money I have to phishing attacks,” she stated. “I do not trust this new-fangled online nonsense.”

That seems to be the case across the board. A friend has to use the ATM card to check the balance in her parents’ account every month — just like my father, they have the pin scribbled on a piece of paper stored in the card case for convenience — but withdrawals are made via cheque. The father of another friend makes sure to get all their passbooks updated every month, though it is just as easy to check the balance online.

After paying Gautam Uncle’s bills for four months, I got a call from Suranjana. “You won’t believe this,” she said with a laugh. Gautam Uncle was most disappointed in her. If I could pay my father’s Durgapur bills sitting in Calcutta, he pointed out, “Why can’t you pay my bills from Delhi?”