I've learned to always state it as I hand over the card; perhaps the issue was cancelling and redoing the charge.

On a recent trip, both in the Dubai airport and in India if I said nothing the charge was always in dollars, with the blurb saying that I had a choice (I think I had to initial that?). Those were incidental amounts, so I didn't care much, but when making larger purchases, and at the hotel, I made sure to clearly state "Charge in Rupees, please" as I handed it over. Never had a problem with that.