That was mild compared to my OTP morning. I was about to board a flight from London to Zurich, and that’s when my accountant, sitting in north Mumbai, said he’d generated the OTP for GST filing, and if this 4- or 6-digit gold didn’t come, then I’d have to pay a significant fine, which would be foolish, given all I had to do was give him the OTP.
The Swiss pilot had announced departure. I had limited signal on the plane, and the length of the 2-hr flight would have made it too late for everything. So, I did what any decent Indian would. I pretended a health emergency, ran out of the plane and into the terminal, found the OTP, and sent it. When I returned, some of the names my co-passengers called me cannot be repeated in a respected newspaper like this. But hell yeah, I had avoided a GST fine!
Somehow, GST folks have pulled off a miraculous coup where the middle-classes feel euphoric joy on completing monthly compliance, not for any personal benefit but for the privilege of paying taxes. It’s almost like a magic trick by the finance ministry. At the height of Soviet Russia, Stalin said: ‘If you create enough government paperwork, the citizen should get most of his joy just from filling up forms properly. He won’t need any other kind of joy that free societies give them.’
A friend was explaining how, fortuitously, he chose to have a coffee instead of taking an underground train in a foreign city. And by that stroke of luck, he was able to give the courier OTP for his long-awaited credit card, which they wouldn’t hand over to his wife back home in India. Had he failed, he’d have to chase the bank, probably mess up his financial planning and systems, and it would go into a 6-month loop.It’s not just government. Every facet of life – from passport collection and AC repair to debit card replacement and beer delivery – is caged in this 4- or 6-digit gateway. Don’t get me wrong. Security in the age when scammers are pretending to be judges on WhatsApp calls and draining your bank balance requires all the authentication possible. The last thing you need is someone else drinking your beer and carrying your passport.However, the way it works in India is that the OTP is always asked for, as our luck would have it, at the least opportune time. And the window given is always a few seconds between eternal damnation and fulfilment.
Think of your recent life, and you’ll think of some idiot you’d said that you won’t be available between X and Y time. And sure enough, he’ll ask for the OTP exactly at the time you’re unavailable — just when you’re about to deliver a baby, or in the middle of the most important investor presentation of your life, or on the verge of proposing.
What we need as a nation is an OTP Day. On this day, whoever needs an OTP from you is told that you’ll sit at home and pass on OTPs. I can guarantee not one person will ask you for an OTP on OTP Day.
