Paying
bills in my dad’s days: Took minutes and sometimes, couple of hours
Paying
bill nowadays: Few seconds and at times couple of minutes
Deeptha
Sreedhar
“Running a house is not easy. It involves paying
many bills and remembering many deadlines. Whereas running a kitchen is not a
big deal! Try paying bills for a month..!” argued my father. These lines are
typical of my dad when my mom and he fight about sharing ‘ghar ka work’. Fed up
of trying to put peace with the fights, my mom pointed at the recent Airtel
commercial, (the one where a boy pays bills through his mobile) and asked me to
teach her the same! I was surprised and the same time excited to help mom win
this never ending battle. For teaching her how to pay bills online would mean
settling scores with dad!
My mom is not tech savvy. Yet, learning to pay bills
was no big deal. Contrary to popular belief, online transactions are not
complicated and do not require any intricate computer knowledge. The basic
ingredients required, (as my mom would call it!) is a functioning computer with
a decent internet connection and details of bills to be paid with banking
passwords.
From mobile bills, telephone bills, electricity
bills, insurance renewals to shopping, everything is can now be made in few
clicks. The sincere student that my mom is, made notes of those four steps
involved in transacting: Opening the browser, typing the required web address,
keying in the bill number- details etc and proceeding to pay desk. Trying her
first e-payment, she lifted her head up once and called out to my dad, what’s
your credit card’s ‘cvv’ number? Puzzled at why mom wanted it, my dad gave it
to her reluctantly. Moments later, my mom held her head up in pride and told,
landline bill paid. Now go cook dinner!
I have not seen such a befitting reply and revenge
before. Although the dinner was not as tasty as mom makes, we learnt one thing
that evening: anyone can pay bills online!
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