@pdurrant
Thanks, I'm trying the gift card.
@Lynx-lynx
The Paypal option shows up on Kobo-India, using the old-style checkout, but it gives me the error message above. The error appears before Kobo tries to hand off to Paypal site.
I got the gift card from the UK site since I already have an account there. Of course, Paypal adds on a 2.5% rate exchange fee

but I guess I was going to get hit with some sort of fee no matter what.
@mgbino
Thanks but the gift card idea sounded like it would be less of a hassle.